How Polarization Begets Polarization: Ideological Extremism in the US Congress

Extreme polarization in American politics--and especially in the U.S. Congress--is perhaps the most confounding political phenomenon of our time. This book binds together polarization in Congress and polarization in the electorate within an ever-expanding feedback loop. This loop is powered by the discipline exerted by the respective political parties on their Congressional members and district candidates and endorsed by the voters in each Congressional district who must choose between the alternatives offered. These alternatives are just as extreme in competitive as in lop-sided districts. Tight national party discipline produces party delegations in Congress that are widely separated from one another but each ideologically narrowly distributed. As district constituencies become more polarized and are egged on by activists, parties are further motivated to move past a threshold and appeal to their respective bases rather than to voters in the ideological center. America has indeed acquired parties with clear platforms--once thought to be a desirable goal--but these parties are now feuding camps. What resolution might there be? Just as the progressive movement slowly replaced the Gilded Age, might a new reform effort replace the current squabble? Or could an asymmetry develop in the partisan constraints that would lead to ascendancy of the center, or might a new and over-riding issue generate a cross-cutting dimension, opening the door to a new politics? Only the future will tell.

Politics & Social Sciences

Merrill III, Samuel

Grofman, Bernard

Brunell, Thomas L

Anthropology

Oxford University Press

American democracy differs greatly from other democracies around the world. But is the American way more or less efficacious than comparable democracies in Asia, Latin America, or Europe? What if the United States had a prime minister instead of (or in addition to) a president, or if it had three or more parties in Congress instead of two? Would there be more partisan animosity and legislative gridlock or less? These are the kinds of questions that thinking about U.S. government in comparative perspective helps us to analyze. This valuable contribution to political studies takes a unique approach to a much-studied subject, looking at the U.S. government from a comparative point of view. Four distinguished scholars in the field examine the Constitution, the two-party system, the division of power between state and federal governments, and other major features of the American political system in terms of how they differ from other democracies, and they explore what those differences ultimately mean for democratic performance. By merging two important fields of study, American government and comparative political systems, this essential text offers a new and refreshingly insightful view of American exceptionalism.

A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective

Shugart, Matthew Soberg

Lijphart, Arend

TAYLOR, STEVEN L.

Legal Theory & Systems

Yale University Press

This book is the most up-to-date treatment of voting rights law and the numerous controversies surrounding minority representation. Written by authors with first-hand experience in the case law, the book details the evolution of the law and precedent from 1965 forward. The authors explain the basic logic underlying the major decisions, introduce the reader to the procedures for establishing standards of representation and measuring discrimination, and discuss the major points of recent contention. In the concluding chapter, the authors address the implications of the recent developments in voting rights law for the future of representation in America.

Minority Representation and the Quest for Voting Equality

Niemi, Richard G.

Handley, Lisa

Politics & Government

Cambridge University Press

Minority Representation and the Quest for Voting Equality (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought)

Behavioral Social Choice: Probabilistic Models, Statistical Inference, and Applications

Looking at the probabilistic foundations of collective decision-making rules, the authors challenge much of the existing theoretical wisdom about social choice processes, and seek to restore faith in the possibility of democratic decision-making. In particular, they argue that worries about the supposed prevalence of majority rule cycles, that would preclude groups from reaching a final decision about what alternative they prefer, have been greatly overstated. In practice, majority rule can be expected to work well in most real-world settings. They provide new insights into how alternative model specifications can change our estimates of social orderings.

Business & Money

Marley, A. A. J.

Regenwetter, Michel

Tsetlin, Ilia

Economics

The authors explain how parties and candidates position themselves on the Left-Right ideological dimension and other issue dimensions. Their unified theoretical approach to voter behavior and party strategies takes into account voter preferences, voter's partisan attachments, expected turnout, and the location of the political status quo. The approach, tested through extensive cross-national analysis, includes studies of the plurality-based two-party contests in the U.S. and multiple-party competition in France, Britain, and Norway.

A Unified Theory of Party Competition: A Cross-National Analysis Integrating Spatial and Behavioral Factors

Adams, James F.

Professors Merrill and Grofman develop a unified model that incorporates voter motivations and assesses its empirical predictions--for both voter choice and candidate strategy--in the United States, Norway, and France. The analyses show that a combination of proximity, direction, discounting, and party ID are compatible with the mildly but not extremely divergent policies that are characteristic of many two-party and multiparty electorates. All of these motivations are necessary to understand the linkage between candidate issue positions and voter preferences.

A Unified Theory of Voting: Directional and Proximity Spatial Models

Looking at the probabilistic foundations of collective decision-making rules, the authors challenge much of the existing theoretical wisdom about social choice processes, and seek to restore faith in the possibility of democratic decision-making. In particular, they argue that worries about the supposed prevalence of majority rule cycles, that would preclude groups from reaching a final decision about what alternative they prefer, have been greatly overstated. In practice, majority rule can be expected to work well in most real-world settings. They provide new insights into how alternative model specifications can change our estimates of social orderings.

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Books by Grofman, Bernard