Journal articles on the topic 'Polarization (Social sciences) – United States'
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1
Pinch, S. "Social Polarization: A Comparison of Evidence from Britain and the United States." Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space 25, no. 6 (June 1993): 779–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1068/a250779.
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In this paper, evidence from Britain and the United States concerning social polarization is compared. Two major approaches to the subject are identified: the first, most extensively developed in the United States, is focused upon occupational shifts and their impact upon the earnings paid to individuals; and the second, which has emerged in Britain, is focused upon households and all the types of work undertaken within them. These approaches and their differing implications for polarization—the first approach suggesting a ‘disappearing middle’ and the second approach a growing ‘underclass’—are related to differing social and economic circumstances in Britain and the United States. Both approaches are applied to a household survey of the economically active in Southampton. The survey indicates that social polarization is a result both of sectoral shifts in the local economy and of changing household structures. A number of contrasts between labour-market influences upon polarization in the United States and Britain are highlighted.
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Yuan, Yaqi, Kristen Schultz Lee, and Yunmei Lu. "Public Support for Government Intervention in Health Care in the United States from 1984 to 2016." Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World 8 (January 2022): 237802312110723. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/23780231211072394.
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Research on public opinion regarding government’s role in health care has paid little attention to how public opinion has changed among different age groups over time and to how the intersection of age, birth year, political affiliation, and historical time shape public opinion. In this article, the authors ask, Who supports governmental spending on health care, and how has this changed over time? The authors propose a life-course perspective to study political polarization in the health care domain using General Social Survey 1984 to 2016 data. The results indicate that the growing political polarization in support for government intervention in health care across the 32 years studied occurred among middle-aged adults. The findings of this study contribute new understandings of how age and party membership interact in contributing to political polarization regarding government’s role in health care over time.
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Abramowitz, Alan, and Jennifer McCoy. "United States: Racial Resentment, Negative Partisanship, and Polarization in Trump’s America." ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 681, no. 1 (December 20, 2018): 137–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0002716218811309.
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Growing racial, ideological, and cultural polarization within the American electorate contributed to the shocking victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Using data from American National Election Studies surveys, we show that Trump’s unusually explicit appeals to racial and ethnic resentment attracted strong support from white working-class voters while repelling many college-educated whites along with the overwhelming majority of nonwhite voters. However, Trump’s campaign exploited divisions that have been growing within the electorate for decades because of demographic and cultural changes in American society. The 2016 presidential campaign also reinforced another longstanding trend in American electoral politics: the rise of negative partisanship, that is voting based on hostility toward the opposing party and its leaders. We conclude with a discussion of the consequences of deepening partisan and affective polarization for American democracy and the perceptions by both experts and the public of an erosion in its quality.
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Baldassarri, Delia. "Partisan Joiners: Associational Membership and Political Polarization in the United States (1974-2004)*." Social Science Quarterly 92, no. 3 (July 26, 2011): 631–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6237.2011.00785.x.
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Iyengar, Shanto, Yphtach Lelkes, Matthew Levendusky, Neil Malhotra, and Sean J. Westwood. "The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization in the United States." Annual Review of Political Science 22, no. 1 (May 11, 2019): 129–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051117-073034.
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While previously polarization was primarily seen only in issue-based terms, a new type of division has emerged in the mass public in recent years: Ordinary Americans increasingly dislike and distrust those from the other party. Democrats and Republicans both say that the other party's members are hypocritical, selfish, and closed-minded, and they are unwilling to socialize across party lines. This phenomenon of animosity between the parties is known as affective polarization. We trace its origins to the power of partisanship as a social identity, and explain the factors that intensify partisan animus. We also explore the consequences of affective polarization, highlighting how partisan affect influences attitudes and behaviors well outside the political sphere. Finally, we discuss strategies that might mitigate partisan discord and conclude with suggestions for future work.
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Kahan, Dan M., Hank Jenkins-Smith, Tor Tarantola, Carol L. Silva, and Donald Braman. "Geoengineering and Climate Change Polarization." ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 658, no. 1 (February 8, 2015): 192–222. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0002716214559002.
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The cultural cognition thesis posits that individuals rely extensively on cultural meanings in forming perceptions of risk. The logic of the cultural cognition thesis suggests that a two-channel science communication strategy, combining information content (“Channel 1”) with cultural meanings (“Channel 2”), could promote open-minded assessment of information across diverse communities. We test this kind of communication strategy in a two-nation (United States, n = 1,500; England, n = 1,500) study, in which scientific information content on climate change was held constant while the cultural meaning of that information was experimentally manipulated. We found that cultural polarization over the validity of climate change science is offset by making citizens aware of the potential contribution of geoengineering as a supplement to restriction of CO2 emissions. We also tested the hypothesis, derived from a competing model of science communication, that exposure to information on geoengineering would lead citizens to discount climate change risks generally. Contrary to this hypothesis, we found that subjects exposed to information about geoengineering were slightly more concerned about climate change risks than those assigned to a control condition.
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Sehat, David. "Religion and American Public Life." Perspectives on Politics 10, no. 1 (March 2012): 110–14. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1537592711004324.
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In his 2000 best seller Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Civic Community, Robert Putnam analyzed the links between social capital and civic engagement. Lamenting the decline of “civic America,” he called for a Tocquevillean renewal of voluntary association in the United States. In American Grace, Putnam and coauthor David Campbell—who also helped with the preparation of Bowling Alone—return to the analysis of American civil society, focusing their attention on America's changing religious landscape and its implications for democracy. Their basic argument is that while the United States is religiously diverse and pluralistic to a profound degree, and while in recent years it has witnessed growing religious polarization, it has also succeeded in muting religious tensions and hostilities. As they conclude: “How has America solved the puzzle of religious pluralism—the coexistence of religious diversity and devotion? And how has it done so in the wake of growing religious polarization? By creating a web of interlocking personal relationships among people of many different faiths. This is America's grace” (p. 550).Given the importance of religion in American life and the influence of Putnam's broad agenda on much current social science research on social capital and civic engagement, we have decided to organize a symposium around the book, centered on three questions: 1) How is American Grace related to Putnam's earlier work, particularly Bowling Alone, and what are the implications of the continuities and/or discontinuities between these works? 2) What kind of a work of political science is American Grace, and how does it compare to other important recent work dealing with religion and politics in the United States? 3) What are the strengths and weaknesses of Putnam and Campbell's account of “how religion divides and unites us,” and what is the best way of thinking about the contemporary significance of religion and politics in the United States and about the ways that the religious landscape challenges U.S. politics and U.S. political science?
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Olson, Laura R. "Religion and American Public Life." Perspectives on Politics 10, no. 1 (March 2012): 103–6. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1537592711004348.
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In his 2000 best seller Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Civic Community, Robert Putnam analyzed the links between social capital and civic engagement. Lamenting the decline of “civic America,” he called for a Tocquevillean renewal of voluntary association in the United States. In American Grace, Putnam and coauthor David Campbell—who also helped with the preparation of Bowling Alone—return to the analysis of American civil society, focusing their attention on America's changing religious landscape and its implications for democracy. Their basic argument is that while the United States is religiously diverse and pluralistic to a profound degree, and while in recent years it has witnessed growing religious polarization, it has also succeeded in muting religious tensions and hostilities. As they conclude: “How has America solved the puzzle of religious pluralism—the coexistence of religious diversity and devotion? And how has it done so in the wake of growing religious polarization? By creating a web of interlocking personal relationships among people of many different faiths. This is America's grace” (p. 550).Given the importance of religion in American life and the influence of Putnam's broad agenda on much current social science research on social capital and civic engagement, we have decided to organize a symposium around the book, centered on three questions: 1) How is American Grace related to Putnam's earlier work, particularly Bowling Alone, and what are the implications of the continuities and/or discontinuities between these works? 2) What kind of a work of political science is American Grace, and how does it compare to other important recent work dealing with religion and politics in the United States? 3) What are the strengths and weaknesses of Putnam and Campbell's account of “how religion divides and unites us,” and what is the best way of thinking about the contemporary significance of religion and politics in the United States and about the ways that the religious landscape challenges U.S. politics and U.S. political science?
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Shields, Jon A. "Religion and American Public Life." Perspectives on Politics 10, no. 1 (March 2012): 114–17. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s153759271100435x.
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In his 2000 best seller Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Civic Community, Robert Putnam analyzed the links between social capital and civic engagement. Lamenting the decline of “civic America,” he called for a Tocquevillean renewal of voluntary association in the United States. In American Grace, Putnam and coauthor David Campbell—who also helped with the preparation of Bowling Alone—return to the analysis of American civil society, focusing their attention on America's changing religious landscape and its implications for democracy. Their basic argument is that while the United States is religiously diverse and pluralistic to a profound degree, and while in recent years it has witnessed growing religious polarization, it has also succeeded in muting religious tensions and hostilities. As they conclude: “How has America solved the puzzle of religious pluralism—the coexistence of religious diversity and devotion? And how has it done so in the wake of growing religious polarization? By creating a web of interlocking personal relationships among people of many different faiths. This is America's grace” (p. 550).Given the importance of religion in American life and the influence of Putnam's broad agenda on much current social science research on social capital and civic engagement, we have decided to organize a symposium around the book, centered on three questions: 1) How is American Grace related to Putnam's earlier work, particularly Bowling Alone, and what are the implications of the continuities and/or discontinuities between these works? 2) What kind of a work of political science is American Grace, and how does it compare to other important recent work dealing with religion and politics in the United States? 3) What are the strengths and weaknesses of Putnam and Campbell's account of “how religion divides and unites us,” and what is the best way of thinking about the contemporary significance of religion and politics in the United States and about the ways that the religious landscape challenges U.S. politics and U.S. political science?
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Elshtain, Jean Bethke. "Religion and American Public Life." Perspectives on Politics 10, no. 1 (March 2012): 107–10. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1537592711004841.
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In his 2000 best seller Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Civic Community, Robert Putnam analyzed the links between social capital and civic engagement. Lamenting the decline of “civic America,” he called for a Tocquevillean renewal of voluntary association in the United States. In American Grace, Putnam and coauthor David Campbell—who also helped with the preparation of Bowling Alone—return to the analysis of American civil society, focusing their attention on America's changing religious landscape and its implications for democracy. Their basic argument is that while the United States is religiously diverse and pluralistic to a profound degree, and while in recent years it has witnessed growing religious polarization, it has also succeeded in muting religious tensions and hostilities. As they conclude: “How has America solved the puzzle of religious pluralism—the coexistence of religious diversity and devotion? And how has it done so in the wake of growing religious polarization? By creating a web of interlocking personal relationships among people of many different faiths. This is America's grace” (p. 550).Given the importance of religion in American life and the influence of Putnam's broad agenda on much current social science research on social capital and civic engagement, we have decided to organize a symposium around the book, centered on three questions: 1) How is American Grace related to Putnam's earlier work, particularly Bowling Alone, and what are the implications of the continuities and/or discontinuities between these works? 2) What kind of a work of political science is American Grace, and how does it compare to other important recent work dealing with religion and politics in the United States? 3) What are the strengths and weaknesses of Putnam and Campbell's account of “how religion divides and unites us,” and what is the best way of thinking about the contemporary significance of religion and politics in the United States and about the ways that the religious landscape challenges U.S. politics and U.S. political science?
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Suhay, Elizabeth, Emily Bello-Pardo, and Brianna Maurer. "The Polarizing Effects of Online Partisan Criticism: Evidence from Two Experiments." International Journal of Press/Politics 23, no. 1 (November 29, 2017): 95–115. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1940161217740697.
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Affective and social political polarization—a dislike of political opponents and a desire to avoid their company—are increasingly salient and pervasive features of politics in many Western democracies, particularly the United States. One contributor to these related phenomena may be increasing exposure to online political disagreements in which ordinary citizens criticize, and sometimes explicitly demean, opponents. This article presents two experimental studies that assessed whether U.S. partisans’ attitudes became more prejudiced in favor of the in-party after exposure to online partisan criticism. In the first study, we draw on an online convenience sample to establish that partisan criticism that derogates political opponents increases affective polarization. In the second, we replicate these findings with a quasi-representative sample and extend the pattern of findings to social polarization. We conclude that online partisan criticism likely has contributed to rising affective and social polarization in recent years between Democrats and Republicans in the United States, and perhaps between partisan and ideological group members in other developed democracies as well. We close by discussing the troubling implications of these findings in light of continuing attempts by autocratic regimes and other actors to influence democratic elections via false identities on social media.
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Zinda, John Aloysius, James Zhang, Lindy B. Williams, David L. Kay, Sarah M. Alexander, and Libby Zemaitis. "Different Hazards, Different Responses: Assessments of Flooding and COVID-19 Risks among Upstate New York Residents." Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World 8 (January 2022): 237802312110692. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/23780231211069215.
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The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and extreme flooding events have recently taken enormous tolls. Drawing on research into differential risk responses across hazards, the authors examine how different social processes surrounding risk from flooding and COVID-19 shape how people respond to each hazard. Data from a household survey of 498 residents in two cities in the northeastern United States reveal that levels of concern and protective measures vary across the two hazards. Whereas climate polarization does not appear to influence flood risk responses, COVID-19 responses appear strongly polarized. However, having a known risk condition can offset Republicans’ doubts about COVID-19. In addition, whereas people of color express greater concern about flooding, white people take more protective measures, and women are more likely than others to take protective measures against COVID-19. Contrasting stakes, immediacy, dread, and polarization surrounding flooding and COVID-19 intersect with social inequalities to produce differing patterns of risk response.
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Boulianne, Shelley, Karolina Koc-Michalska, and Bruce Bimber. "Right-wing populism, social media and echo chambers in Western democracies." New Media & Society 22, no. 4 (April 2020): 683–99. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1461444819893983.
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Many observers are concerned that echo chamber effects in digital media are contributing to the polarization of publics and, in some places, to the rise of right-wing populism. This study employs survey data collected in France, the United Kingdom and the United States (1500 respondents in each country) from April to May 2017. Overall, we do not find evidence that online/social media explain support for right-wing populist candidates and parties. Instead, in the United States, use of online media decreases support for right-wing populism. Looking specifically at echo chamber measures, we find offline discussion with those who are similar in race, ethnicity and class positively correlates with support for populist candidates and parties in the United Kingdom and France. The findings challenge claims about the role of social media and the rise of populism.
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Gin, Willie. "Divided by Identity on the Left? Partisan Spillover and Identity Politics Alignment." Forum 19, no. 2 (September 1, 2021): 253–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/for-2021-0017.
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Abstract It has often been stated that in the United States the left tends to be less united than the right on issues related to identity politics such as race, gender, and religion. This article presents evidence that this asymmetry in partisan alignment over identity politics is changing over time. Looking at various measures of public opinion shows that the left’s agreement on issues related to identity politics has either caught up with the right or that the gap is diminishing. The article considers various possible explanations for unity on these issues – including personality distribution, party homogeneity, and message infrastructure – and shows that partisan spillover in the context of polarization helps explains the closing of the gap in unity between the right and the left. In an era of polarization, Democratic affiliation induces warmer feeling toward stigmatized coalition partners. Groups that may have joined the Democratic party on a single group interest claim (race, gender, religion, class) will gradually move toward greater acceptance of other group interest claims supported by the party. These findings have implications for the oft-stated strategic claim that the left needs to focus on class redistribution over identity politics if the left does not want to be fractured.
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Leung, Kristo, Ke Cheng, Junyao Zhang, Yipeng Cheng, Viet Hung Nguyen Cao, Shusuke Ioku, Masanori Kikuchi, Wen Long, and Charles Crabtree. "How Asians React to Discrimination Does Not Depend on Their Party Identification." Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World 7 (January 2021): 237802312110480. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/23780231211048023.
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How do individuals respond to discrimination against their group? The authors help answer this normatively important question by conducting a survey with a large, national, quota-based sample of 2,482 Asians living in the United States during December 2020. In the survey, the authors provide respondents with truthful information about the increasing prevalence of anti-Asian discrimination in the United States during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic and ask them to write about what this makes them feel or think about life in America. Using automatic text analysis tools to analyze this rich, novel set of personal reflections, the authors show in this visualization that Asian reactions to discrimination do not meaningfully differ across partisan identification. These findings extend the large literature showing partisan differences in perceptions of racial discrimination and its effects by the general public and show at least one way in which partisan polarization does not influence American views.
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Rao, Ashwin, Fred Morstatter, Minda Hu, Emily Chen, Keith Burghardt, Emilio Ferrara, and Kristina Lerman. "Political Partisanship and Antiscience Attitudes in Online Discussions About COVID-19: Twitter Content Analysis." Journal of Medical Internet Research 23, no. 6 (June 14, 2021): e26692. http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/26692.
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Background The novel coronavirus pandemic continues to ravage communities across the United States. Opinion surveys identified the importance of political ideology in shaping perceptions of the pandemic and compliance with preventive measures. Objective The aim of this study was to measure political partisanship and antiscience attitudes in the discussions about the pandemic on social media, as well as their geographic and temporal distributions. Methods We analyzed a large set of tweets from Twitter related to the pandemic, collected between January and May 2020, and developed methods to classify the ideological alignment of users along the moderacy (hardline vs moderate), political (liberal vs conservative), and science (antiscience vs proscience) dimensions. Results We found a significant correlation in polarized views along the science and political dimensions. Moreover, politically moderate users were more aligned with proscience views, while hardline users were more aligned with antiscience views. Contrary to expectations, we did not find that polarization grew over time; instead, we saw increasing activity by moderate proscience users. We also show that antiscience conservatives in the United States tended to tweet from the southern and northwestern states, while antiscience moderates tended to tweet from the western states. The proportion of antiscience conservatives was found to correlate with COVID-19 cases. Conclusions Our findings shed light on the multidimensional nature of polarization and the feasibility of tracking polarized opinions about the pandemic across time and space through social media data.
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Brown, Trevor, Suzanne Mettler, and Samantha Puzzi. "When Rural and Urban Become “Us” versus “Them”: How a Growing Divide is Reshaping American Politics." Forum 19, no. 3 (November 29, 2021): 365–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/for-2021-2029.
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Abstract The United States’ long-standing broad “catch-all” political parties have historically combined voters from distinct regions of the country, each including both rural and urban dwellers. Since the late 1990s, however, rural Americans nationwide have increasingly supported the Republican Party, while urbanites have persisted in their allegiance to the Democratic Party. The growing rural-urban divide has become mapped onto American polarization in ways that are fostering tribalism. This place-based cleavage is now contributing to the transformation of the nation’s politics and that of many states. It also threatens to have deleterious effects on democracy.
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Kwon, Roy. "Does Radical Partisan Politics Affect National Income Distributions? Congressional Polarization and Income Inequality in the United States, 1913-2008*." Social Science Quarterly 96, no. 1 (April 21, 2014): 49–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12090.
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Scoville, Caleb, Andrew McCumber, Razvan Amironesei, and June Jeon. "Mask Refusal Backlash: The Politicization of Face Masks in the American Public Sphere during the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic." Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World 8 (January 2022): 237802312210931. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/23780231221093158.
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This research shows how face masks took on discursive political significance during the early stages of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic in the United States. The authors argue that political divisions over masks cannot be understood by looking to partisan differences in mask-wearing behaviors alone. Instead, they show how the mask became a political symbol enrolled into patterns of affective polarization. This study relies on qualitative and computational analyses of opinion articles ( n = 7,970) and supplemental analyses of Twitter data, the transcripts of major news networks, and longitudinal survey data. First, the authors show that antimask discourse was consistently marginal and that backlash against mask refusal came to prominence and did not decline even as masking behaviors normalized and partly depolarized. Second, they show that backlash against mask refusal, rather than mask refusal itself, was the primary way masks were discussed in relation to national electoral, governmental, and partisan themes.
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Algara, Carlos, and Savannah Johnston. "The Rising Electoral Role of Polarization & Implications for Policymaking in the United States Senate: Assessing the Consequences of Polarization in the Senate from 1914–2020." Forum 19, no. 4 (December 1, 2021): 549–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/for-2021-2034.
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Abstract The dramatic Democratic victories in the 2021 Georgia U.S. Senate runoffs handed Democrats their first majority since 2015 and, with this, unified Democratic control of Washington for the first time since 2011. While Democratic Leaders and President Joe Biden crafted their agenda, any hope of policy passage rested on complete unity in a 50–50 Senate and a narrow majority in the U.S. House. Against this backdrop, the 117th Senate is the most polarized since direct-election began in 1914 and, by popular accounts, the least deliberative in a generation. In this article, we examine the implications of partisan polarization for policymaking in the U.S. Senate throughout the direct-election era. First, we show that greater polarization coincides with more partisan Senate election outcomes, congruent with recent trends in the House. Today, over 90% of Senators represent states carried by their party’s presidential nominee. Secondly, we show that polarization coincides with higher levels of observable obstruction, conflict, partisan unity, and narrower majorities. Lastly, we show that this polarization coincides with lower levels of deliberation in the form of consideration of floor amendments and committee meetings. Taken together, we paint a picture of a polarized Senate that is more partisan, more obstructionist, and less deliberative.
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McCoy, Jennifer, Tahmina Rahman, and Murat Somer. "Polarization and the Global Crisis of Democracy: Common Patterns, Dynamics, and Pernicious Consequences for Democratic Polities." American Behavioral Scientist 62, no. 1 (January 2018): 16–42. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0002764218759576.
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This article argues that a common pattern and set of dynamics characterizes severe political and societal polarization in different contexts around the world, with pernicious consequences for democracy. Moving beyond the conventional conceptualization of polarization as ideological distance between political parties and candidates, we offer a conceptualization of polarization highlighting its inherently relational nature and its instrumental political use. Polarization is a process whereby the normal multiplicity of differences in a society increasingly align along a single dimension and people increasingly perceive and describe politics and society in terms of “Us” versus “Them.” The politics and discourse of opposition and the social–psychological intergroup conflict dynamics produced by this alignment are a main source of the risks polarization generates for democracy, although we recognize that it can also produce opportunities for democracy. We argue that contemporary examples of polarization follow a frequent pattern whereby polarization is activated when major groups in society mobilize politically to achieve fundamental changes in structures, institutions, and power relations. Hence, newly constructed cleavages are appearing that underlie polarization and are not easily measured with the conventional Left–Right ideological scale. We identify three possible negative outcomes for democracy—“gridlock and careening,” “democratic erosion or collapse under new elites and dominant groups,” and “democratic erosion or collapse with old elites and dominant groups,” and one possible positive outcome—“reformed democracy.” Drawing on literature in psychology and political science, the article posits a set of causal mechanisms linking polarization to harm to democracy and illustrates the common patterns and pernicious consequences for democracy in four country cases: varying warning signs of democratic erosion in Hungary and the United States, and growing authoritarianism in Turkey and Venezuela.
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Becker, Amy B. "Polarization and American Jews: The Partisan Debate Over Attribution of Blame and Responsibility for Rising Anti‐Semitism in the United States." Social Science Quarterly 101, no. 4 (July 2020): 1572–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12829.
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DellaPosta, Daniel. "Pluralistic Collapse: The “Oil Spill” Model of Mass Opinion Polarization." American Sociological Review 85, no. 3 (June 2020): 507–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0003122420922989.
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Despite widespread feeling that public opinion in the United States has become dramatically polarized along political lines, empirical support for such a pattern is surprisingly elusive. Reporting little evidence of mass polarization, previous studies assume polarization is evidenced via the amplification of existing political alignments. This article considers a different pathway: polarization occurring via social, cultural, and political alignments coming to encompass an increasingly diverse array of opinions and attitudes. The study uses 44 years of data from the General Social Survey representing opinions and attitudes across a wide array of domains as elements in an evolving belief network. Analyses of this network produce evidence that mass polarization has increased via a process of belief consolidation, entailing the collapse of previously cross-cutting alignments, thus creating increasingly broad and encompassing clusters organized around cohesive packages of beliefs. Further, the increasing salience of political ideology and partisanship only partly explains this trend. The structure of U.S. opinion has shifted in ways suggesting troubling implications for proponents of political and social pluralism.
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Merkley, Eric, Aengus Bridgman, Peter John Loewen, Taylor Owen, Derek Ruths, and Oleg Zhilin. "A Rare Moment of Cross-Partisan Consensus: Elite and Public Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Canada." Canadian Journal of Political Science 53, no. 2 (April 16, 2020): 311–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0008423920000311.
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The COVID-19 pandemic requires an effort to coordinate the actions of government and society in a way unmatched in recent history. Individual citizens need to voluntarily sacrifice economic and social activity for an indefinite period of time to protect others. At the same time, we know that public opinion tends to become polarized on highly salient issues, except when political elites are in consensus (Berinsky, 2009; Zaller, 1992). Avoiding elite and public polarization is thus essential for an effective societal response to the pandemic. In the United States, there appears to be elite and public polarization on the severity of the pandemic (Gadarian et al., 2020). Other evidence suggests that polarization is undermining compliance with social distancing (Cornelson and Miloucheva, 2020). Using a multimethod approach, we show that Canadian political elites and the public are in a unique period of cross-partisan consensus on important questions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, such as its seriousness and the necessity of social distancing.
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Johnson, Kenneth M., and Dante J. Scala. "The Rural-Urban Continuum of Polarization: Understanding the Geography of the 2018 Midterms." Forum 18, no. 4 (December 30, 2020): 607–26. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/for-2020-2102.
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Abstract This study of the 2018 congressional midterms demonstrates how voting patterns and political attitudes vary across a spectrum of urban and rural areas in the United States. Rural America is no more a monolith than is urban America. The rural-urban gradient is better represented by a continuum than a dichotomy. This is evident in the voting results in 2018, just as it was in 2016. We found that the political tipping point lies beyond major metropolitan areas, in the suburban counties of smaller metropolitan areas. Democrats enjoyed even greater success in densely populated urban areas in 2018 than in 2016. Residents of these urban areas display distinctive and consistent social and political attitudes across a range of scales. At the other end of the continuum in remote rural areas, Republican candidates continued to command voter support despite the challenging national political environment. Voters in these rural regions expressed social and political attitudes diametrically opposed to their counterparts in large urban cores.
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Scala, Dante J., and Kenneth M. Johnson. "Political Polarization along the Rural-Urban Continuum? The Geography of the Presidential Vote, 2000–2016." ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 672, no. 1 (June 23, 2017): 162–84. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0002716217712696.
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This article documents the diversity of political attitudes and voting patterns along the urban-rural continuum of the United States. We find that America’s rural and urban interface, in terms of political attitudes and voting patterns, is just beyond the outer edges of large urban areas and through the suburban counties of smaller metropolitan areas. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton performed well in densely populated areas on the urban side of the interface, but they faced increasingly difficult political climates and sharply diminished voter support on the rural side of the interface. The reduction in support for Clinton in 2016 in rural areas was particularly pronounced. Even after controlling for demographic, social, and economic factors (including geographic region, education, income, age, race, and religious affiliation) in a spatial regression, we find that a county’s position in the urban-rural continuum remained statistically significant in the estimation of voting patterns in presidential elections.
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Bolsen, Toby, James N. Druckman, and Fay Lomax Cook. "Citizens’, Scientists’, and Policy Advisors’ Beliefs about Global Warming." ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 658, no. 1 (February 8, 2015): 271–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0002716214558393.
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Numerous factors shape citizens’ beliefs about global warming, but there is very little research that compares the views of the public with key actors in the policymaking process. We analyze data from simultaneous and parallel surveys of (1) the U.S. public, (2) scientists who actively publish research on energy technologies in the United States, and (3) congressional policy advisors and find that beliefs about global warming vary markedly among them. Scientists and policy advisors are more likely than the public to express a belief in the existence and anthropogenic nature of global warming. We also find ideological polarization about global warming in all three groups, although scientists are less polarized than the public and policy advisors over whether global warming is actually occurring. Alarmingly, there is evidence that the ideological divide about global warming gets significantly larger according to respondents’ knowledge about politics, energy, and science.
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Symons, Jonathan, and Dennis Altman. "International norm polarization: sexuality as a subject of human rights protection." International Theory 7, no. 1 (February 9, 2015): 61–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1752971914000384.
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International norm polarization is a rare but recurring process within international norm dynamics. Polarization describes the most combative response to attempted norm change: ‘a candidate norm is accepted by some states but resisted by others, leading to a period of international disputation between two groups in which socializing pressures pull states toward compliance with rival norms’. We identify several cases of polarization and explain this phenomenon by elaborating the constructivist model of the norm life cycle to processes of international resistance to norm change as well as to norm acceptance. We also draw on social identity theory (SIT) to examine group-psychological responses where disputed norms become closely linked to state identity. We illustrate these dynamics with reference to conflict over the norm that recognizes sexual orientation and gender identity as subjects of international human rights protection. Over the past decade this candidate norm has become increasingly contentious internationally, and bitter debates over resolutions concerning extra-judicial killings and discrimination have divided the United Nations General Assembly and Human Rights Council. The article makes a primary contribution to analysis of international norm change and also contributes to an emerging literature concerning sexuality and international relations.
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Jacobs, Nicholas F., and Sidney M. Milkis. "Get Out of the Way: Joe Biden, the U.S. Congress, and Executive-Centered Partisanship During the President’s First Year in Office." Forum 19, no. 4 (December 1, 2021): 709–44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/for-2022-2041.
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Abstract On the campaign trail and at his inauguration, Joe Biden pledged, above all else, to be a uniter to restore the soul of America. At the end of his first year in office, many campaign promises have been met, but unity has not been one. Far from transcending partisanship as promised, Biden has embraced the levers of presidential discretion and power inherent within the modern executive office to advance partisan objectives. He is not just a victim of polarization, but actively contributes to it. This is not unexpected. Rather it is the culmination of a decades-long reorientation within both major parties: the rise of an executive-centered party-system, with Democrats and Republicans alike relying on presidents and presidential candidates to pronounce party doctrine, raise campaign funds, campaign on behalf of their partisan brethren, mobilize grass roots support, and advance party programs. Like Barack Obama and Donald Trump before him, Biden has aggressively used executive power to cut the Gordian knot of partisan gridlock in Congress. Even pandemic politics is not immune to presidential partisanship; in fact, it has accentuated the United States’ presidency-centered democracy, which weakens the public resolve to confront and solve national problems.
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Eibach, Richard P., and Valerie Purdie-Vaughns. "CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN?" Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race 6, no. 1 (2009): 137–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1742058x09090080.
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AbstractBarack Obama's election as the first Black president of the United States has stimulated much discussion about progress toward racial equality in the United States. Opinion surveys document that White Americans reliably perceive the rate of progress toward racial equality as greater than do Black Americans. We focus on two psychological factors that contribute to these diverging perceptions: (1) the tendency of White Americans and Black Americans to adopt different reference points to assess racial progress, and (2) the general tendency to frame social change as a zero-sum game in which Black Americans' gains entail losses for White Americans. We review research examining how these two factors contribute to racial polarization on the topic of progress toward equality. We also draw on excerpts from Barack Obama's speeches and writings to demonstrate that he often frames issues in ways that, our research suggests, has the potential to substantially bridge these racial divisions.
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Pérez-Curiel, Concha, Rubén Rivas-de-Roca, and Ricardo Domínguez-García. "Facing Conspiracies: Biden’s Counter-Speech to Trumpist Messages in the Framework of the 2020 US Elections." Societies 12, no. 5 (September 22, 2022): 134. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/soc12050134.
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The climate of division and polarization in the US politics is increasing, going beyond the time in the office of a specific leader. Several political or technological challenges have ended up eroding this trust, making social cohesion difficult. In this context, this research examines the communication strategies of the elected president Biden after the 2020 elections, shedding light on how his legitimacy was built. All the messages that the Democrat published on his personal Twitter account (@JoeBiden) were collected, from the day after the presidential elections (4 November 2020) until his inauguration as president of the United States (20 January 2021). Using a content analysis method on issue/game frame and dissemination of the messages (n = 379), and an analysis of the 100 first keywords, results showed a plan of the Democratic candidate to reinforce the role of public institutions but without interaction with the polarized electorate. In this sense, the strategies of the president-elect related to the promotion of political action, the call for unity, and the fight against the pandemic stood out. The frequent use of words with a positive attitude reveals how Biden avoided confrontation with Donald Trump.
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Sanbonmatsu, Kira. "Women's Underrepresentation in the U.S. Congress." Daedalus 149, no. 1 (January 2020): 40–55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/daed_a_01772.
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Women's elective office-holding stands at an all-time high in the United States. Yet women are far from parity. This underrepresentation is surprising given that more women than men vote. Gender–as a feature of both society and politics–has always worked alongside race to determine which groups possess the formal and informal resources and opportunities critical for winning elective office. But how gender connects to office-holding is not fixed; instead, women's access to office has been shaped by changes in law, policy, and social roles, as well as the activities and strategies of social movement actors, political parties, and organizations. In the contemporary period, data from the Center for American Women and Politics reveal that while women are a growing share of Democratic officeholders, they are a declining share of Republican officeholders. Thus, in an era of heightened partisan polarization, women's situation as candidates increasingly depends on party.
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Shaffer, Gregory. "Trade Law in a Data-Driven Economy: The Need for Modesty and Resilience." World Trade Review 20, no. 3 (April 14, 2021): 259–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1474745621000069.
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AbstractThis article examines the social challenges posed by the data-driven economy, their implications for international trade law, the current trade negotiating context involving distinct models advanced by the United States, European Union, and China, and a way forward that can both enhance trade and regulatory efficacy. It examines seven interrelated risks. They are the rise of ‘winner-take-all’ companies; social control through public and private surveillance; social polarization; premature deindustrialization; national security threats; cybersecurity risks; and threats to personal privacy. In response to these risks, the article contends that trade agreements should be deferential to national regulation, while supporting mechanisms for regulatory learning and adaptation. In this spirit, the article advances a governance framework that goes beyond ‘liberalization' and that foregrounds the importance of building resilience and engaging in regulatory problem solving.
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Jelen, Ted G. "Public Attitudes Toward Abortion and LGBTQ Issues." SAGE Open 7, no. 1 (January 2017): 215824401769736. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2158244017697362.
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Trends in public attitudes toward abortion, general acceptance of same-sex relationships, and same-sex marriage are examined across regions and parties in the United States. Relative to Americans living outside the South, Southerners are less accepting of same-sex relationships, and these regional differences appear to be increasing over time. On these issues, multivariate analysis suggests that Democrats and Republicans are moving in opposite directions, with Democrats becoming more accepting of same-sex relationships, and Republicans (relatively) less so. With respect to abortion, regional differences do not appear to be increasing or decreasing over time. Both Republicans and Democrats are becoming more accepting of legal abortion, once the effects of other variables have been controlled, but the rate of change is substantially more rapid among Democrats. Thus, party and regional polarization on issues involving sexual morality seems likely to continue.
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Alexander, Bruce K., Colby Lewis, Jacqueline van Wijngaarden, and Govert van de Wijngaart. "Dubious Consensus: Support for Anti-Drug Policy among Dutch and Canadian University Students." Journal of Drug Issues 22, no. 4 (October 1992): 903–22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/002204269202200407.
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Outside of the United States, how strong is public support for the severe anti-drug policies that have become the norm among Western nations? A fifty-item questionnaire revealed significantly stronger support among Canadian than among Dutch university students on many individual items and on four of five underlying factors. Notwithstanding the differences, both groups expressed a moderate degree of support for anti-drug policy. There were two indications, however, that the apparent support may be “soft” among these students. First, there was a marked polarization of opinion within both groups. Second, opinions changed markedly among Canadian students who completed a course that exposed them to criticism of current anti-drug policy. These findings raise the possibility that popular support for current anti-drug policy outside of the United States may not reflect a firm public consensus so much as the statistical average of divided populations that normally have little access to critical counterinformation.
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Campbell, David E. "The Perils of Politicized Religion." Daedalus 149, no. 3 (July 2020): 87–104. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/daed_a_01805.
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In the United States, religion and partisan politics have become increasingly intertwined. The rising level of religious disaffiliation is a backlash to the religious right: many Americans are abandoning religion because they see it as an extension of politics with which they disagree. Politics is also shaping many Americans' religious views. There has been a stunning change in the percentage of religious believers who, prior to Donald Trump's presidential candidacy, overwhelmingly objected to immoral private behavior by politicians but now dismiss it as irrelevant to their ability to act ethically in their public role. The politicization of religion not only contributes to greater political polarization, it diminishes the ability of religious leaders to speak prophetically on important public issues.
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Diaz, Stephanie A., and Russell A. Hall. "Fighting fake news: Inspiring critical thinking with memorable learning experiences." College & Research Libraries News 81, no. 5 (May 1, 2020): 239. http://dx.doi.org/10.5860/crln.81.5.239.
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Despite fake news having a long and notorious history in the United States, it seemed like a brand-new phenomenon to many people during the 2016 presidential campaign. Four years later, we continue to grapple with the understanding that the fake news issue is a symptom of a perfect storm of political polarization, shifting U.S. demographics, labor market upheaval, the proliferation of social media use, foreign interference, and normal human psychology. With no clear solutions in sight, the battle against fake news continues. Fake news has many troubling implications for life outside of the academy, but it also has serious consequences for student learning. From the perspective of undergraduate students, it may seem that in this post-truth era, anyone with a cellphone can create news, journalists have ulterior motives, news organizations cannot be trusted, debate centers on reaffirming one’s worldview, and nothing is knowable because there is always evidence on both sides of an argument. Despite this, we believe learning experiences designed to be memorable can change students’ perspectives and make a lasting impression.
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Berry, Kate A. "Beyond the American culture wars: A call for environmental leadership and strengthening networks." Regions and Cohesion 7, no. 2 (July 1, 2017): 90–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.3167/reco.2017.070205.
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This article focuses on the United States (US), looking at the American culture war specifically as it relates to environmental issues. Looking at the US today is a reminder that the culture wars are as overtly political as they are culturally motivated, and they diminish social cohesion. The term “culture wars” is defined as increases in volatility, expansion of polarization, and obvious conflicts in various parts of the world between, on the one hand, those who are passionate about religiously motivated politics, traditional morality, and anti-intellectualism, and, on the other hand, those who embrace progressive politics, cultural openness, and scientific and modernist orientations. The article examines this ideological war in contemporary environmental management debates. It identif es characteristics of environmental leadership and discusses how networks can act as environmental leaders.
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Bail, Christopher A., Brian Guay, Emily Maloney, Aidan Combs, D. Sunshine Hillygus, Friedolin Merhout, Deen Freelon, and Alexander Volfovsky. "Assessing the Russian Internet Research Agency’s impact on the political attitudes and behaviors of American Twitter users in late 2017." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, no. 1 (November 25, 2019): 243–50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1906420116.
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There is widespread concern that Russia and other countries have launched social-media campaigns designed to increase political divisions in the United States. Though a growing number of studies analyze the strategy of such campaigns, it is not yet known how these efforts shaped the political attitudes and behaviors of Americans. We study this question using longitudinal data that describe the attitudes and online behaviors of 1,239 Republican and Democratic Twitter users from late 2017 merged with nonpublic data about the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) from Twitter. Using Bayesian regression tree models, we find no evidence that interaction with IRA accounts substantially impacted 6 distinctive measures of political attitudes and behaviors over a 1-mo period. We also find that interaction with IRA accounts were most common among respondents with strong ideological homophily within their Twitter network, high interest in politics, and high frequency of Twitter usage. Together, these findings suggest that Russian trolls might have failed to sow discord because they mostly interacted with those who were already highly polarized. We conclude by discussing several important limitations of our study—especially our inability to determine whether IRA accounts influenced the 2016 presidential election—as well as its implications for future research on social media influence campaigns, political polarization, and computational social science.
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Nayak, Sameera S., Timothy Fraser, Costas Panagopoulos, Daniel P. Aldrich, and Daniel Kim. "Is divisive politics making Americans sick? Associations of perceived partisan polarization with physical and mental health outcomes among adults in the United States." Social Science & Medicine 284 (September 2021): 113976. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.113976.
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Khan, Mohsin Hassan, Farwa Qazalbash, Hamedi Mohd Adnan, Lalu Nurul Yaqin, and Rashid Ali Khuhro. "Trump and Muslims: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Islamophobic Rhetoric in Donald Trump’s Selected Tweets." SAGE Open 11, no. 1 (January 2021): 215824402110041. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/21582440211004172.
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The emergence of Donald Trump as an anti-Muslim-Islam presidential candidate and victory over Hillary Clinton is an issue of debate and division in the United States’ political sphere. Many commentators and political pundits criticize Trump for his disparaging rhetoric on Twitter and present him as an example of how Twitter can be an effective tool for the construction and extension of political polarization. The current study analyzes the selected tweets by Donald Trump posted on Twitter to unmask how he uses language to construct Islamophobic discourse structures and attempts to form his ideological structures along with. The researchers hypothesize that Islamophobia is a marked feature of Trump’s political career realized by specific rhetorical and discursive devices. Therefore, the study purposively takes 40 most controversial tweets of Donald Trump against Islam and Muslims and carried out a critical discourse analysis with the help of macro-strategies of the discourse given by Wodak and Meyer and van Dijk’s referential strategies of political discourse. The findings reveal that Trump uses language rhetorically to exclude people of different ethnic identities, especially Muslims, through demagogic language to create a difference of “us” vs. “them” and making in this way “America Great Again”.
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Casado, Juan Alberto Ruiz. "The Pandemic and its Repercussions on Taiwan, its Identity, and Liberal Democracy." Open Cultural Studies 5, no. 1 (January 1, 2021): 149–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/culture-2020-0123.
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Abstract The situation generated by the pandemic has meant the acceleration of the ongoing hegemonic clash between the United States and China, as well as the intensification of the anti-China narrative and a deplorable wave of Sinophobia throughout the world. In this context, Taiwan has become a strategic hot spot for the development of the rhetoric of the enemy. This study analyses some of the direct consequences of the ensuing friend/foe discourses in the Taiwanese milieu. In the context of a new Cold War, certain groups of power and their media apparatuses have embarked into a race to discursively distance the country as quickly as possible from the despised global enemy, not to be dragged down by the proximity and commonalities shared with China. Moreover, social polarization within Taiwan and contempt for the internal “enemies” pose an added challenge both for the maintenance of liberal democracy and the preservation of peace and self-government on the island. These outcomes are facilitated by underlying populist and nationalist processes of identity construction and hegemonic struggle: distinct discourses re-articulating the Taiwanese identity as an underdog people and a victimized nation.
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Faheem, Farrukh, Sajjad Hussain, and Wang Xingang. "SECTARIAN WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST: IRAN, SAUDI ARABIA, PAKISTAN AND AN UNENDING WAR FOR REGIONAL HEGEMONY." Humanities & Social Sciences Reviews 9, no. 3 (June 25, 2021): 1230–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.18510/hssr.2021.93121.
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Purpose: This paper aims to explore the current chaotic condition of the Middle East that was fueled by the traditional competition between Saudi Arabia and Iran. s state and society in every field of life.
Principal Findings: The paper argues that the Saudi-Iran’s sectarian proxy warfare in the Middle East is a means to counter each other’s regional influence that has adverse implications for the internal security of Pakistan that can destroy its economy as well.
Methodology: This research is based on a qualitative approach and deductive method. The paper answers four main queries: To what extent the Iran–Saudi Rivalry a result of sectarian aspirations? How are both countries using proxy warfare methods in the region to realize their interests vis a vis each other? What is the role of external powers like the United States or Russia in proxy warfare? How does the competition between Iran and Saudi Arabia impact Pakistan?
Applications: The study concludes that the outcome of the predicament in the Middle East has produced policy challenges for Pakistan vis-à- vis its relations with Saudi Arabia and Iran. The growing threats of sectarianism, violent extremism, domestic Polarization, and danger to the economic development of Pakistan make it an important player in this competition.
Novelty: The traditional Conflict between Saudi and Iran affects the entire region of the Middle East. Sectarianism is one of the serious concerns of all Muslim countries today. It truly has both internal and external sources in other neighbouring Muslim states. Thus, this research provides an understanding to comprehend Pakistan’s internal and as well as external problems.
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Chung, Kuyoun. "Ideology, Threat Perception, and Foreign Policy Preference." Korea Observer - Institute of Korean Studies 53, no. 2 (June 30, 2022): 223–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.29152/koiks.2022.53.2.223.
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This article investigates the role of ideological difference in shaping threat perception and foreign policy preference in South Korea and the United States. Increasing ideological polarization has created different threat perceptions and foreign policy priorities within and between these allies, particularly regarding the geostrategic challenge of China.
This research analyzes how strongly ideological differences are associated with threat perception, especially regarding China, and how such different ideologies lead to different foreign policy preferences in addressing those threats. To this end, this study analyzes survey data on the South Korean and American voters' understanding of the ROK-US alliance. Empirical analysis reveals threat perception varies by ideological difference in both countries. Data analysis also shows that both conservatives and progressives in South Korea view the US as a preferable foreign policy partner and support South Korea's joining the Quad, which contradicts the conventional understanding that progressives are not closer to the US. Meanwhile, conservative respondents both in South Korea and the US are pessimistic about the future coordination of the alliance as conservatives in South Korea prioritize North Korea's denuclearization, which might be in conflict with the US priority of countering China, while the conservatives in the US are concerned by South Korea's closer relationship with China. These results thereby necessitate the imperative of closer coordination to address pressing issues in the region but also a deeper investigation of the longer-lasting determinants of ideological differences in the two countries.
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Stewart, Charles. "Trust in Elections." Daedalus 151, no. 4 (2022): 234–53. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/daed_a_01953.
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Abstract The sometimes violent movement to reject the outcome of the 2020 U.S. presidential election draws our attention to the topic of trust in the institution of American election administration. An examination of this topic must make an important distinction between trust in elections (a psychological construct) and the trustworthiness of election results (a legal construct). The history of election administration in the United States is full of examples of efforts to increase the trustworthiness of elections to ensure that results are based on fair and competent administration. The resilience of these efforts was on display following the 2020 election, as formal institutions rejected claims that the election was fraudulent. Still, the past two decades have seen a decline in trust in American elections that has primarily been driven by a slow but steady decline in trust among Republicans. Surprisingly, the increased polarization in trust most recently has been due more to Democrats suddenly becoming more trusting. Election officials must continue to try to overcome attacks on trust in the system, but it is unclear how long they can sustain the legal system guaranteeing free and fair elections without broad-based public trust in how we administer elections.
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Rogers, Nick. "Politicultural Sorting: Mapping Ideological Differences in American Leisure and Consumption." American Politics Research 50, no. 2 (February 14, 2022): 227–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1532673x211041143.
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The United States is in the grips of severe political polarization, which gridlocks government and strains the national social fabric. In one major aspect of the phenomenon, American popular culture is fragmenting along ideological lines, a process herein termed “politicultural sorting.” Previous studies have examined the politicization of individual products and activities (e.g., fine art, television, and coffee), and theorized that culture is dividing in a neatly bipolar fashion. Using proprietary data from the National Consumer Survey, rarely seen in academia, this study advances existing scholarship in two regards: first, by eschewing a piecemeal approach and instead examining large clusters of popular culture relationally; and second, by questioning the dichotomous model that has thus far conceptualized the culture divide. Employing a combination of factor analyses and regressions, this project confirms the general concept of politicultural sorting, but finds that there are numerous archetypes within each ideological group, rather than a single manifestation. Compared with the conservative archetypes, liberal culture tends to be broader, more demographically diverse, edgier, and more embracing of exploratory play. Conservative clusters are more wholesome, overtly religious, and frequently evoke a sense of rugged individualism.
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Cassese, Erin C. "Straying from the Flock? A Look at How Americans’ Gender and Religious Identities Cross-Pressure Partisanship." Political Research Quarterly 73, no. 1 (December 2, 2019): 169–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1065912919889681.
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White evangelicals–both men and women–are a mainstay of the Republican Party. What accounts for their ongoing loyalty, particularly when Republican candidates and leaders fail to embody closely held moral standards around sexual monogamy and propriety, as Donald Trump did in 2016? To answer this question, I draw on research about social sorting and polarization, as well as gender and religion gaps in public opinion, to theorize about the nature of the cross-pressures partisans may experience as a result of the religious and gender identifications they hold. Using data from the 2016 American National Election Study, I evaluate whether cross-cutting identities have a moderating effect on partisans’ thinking about gender issues, their evaluations of the presidential candidates, and their relationship to the parties. I find only modest evidence that gender and evangelical identification impact political thinking among white Republicans, including their reactions to the Access Hollywood tape. Other groups, however, experienced more significant cross-pressures in 2016. Both evangelical Democrats and secular Republicans reported less polarized affective reactions to the presidential candidates and the parties. The results highlight the contingent role that gender and religious identities play in the United States’ highly polarized political climate.
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Busby, Joshua W., and Jonathan Monten. "Without Heirs? Assessing the Decline of Establishment Internationalism in U.S. Foreign Policy." Perspectives on Politics 6, no. 3 (August 18, 2008): 451–72. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s153759270808122x.
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Is establishment internationalism in decline? Conventional wisdom is becoming that structural shifts in the international environment along with generational, demographic, and cultural changes within the United States are inexorably leading to the decline of the broad, post-war internationalist consensus that dominated American foreign policy after 1945. Despite the frequent assertion that this change has taken place, very few studies have analyzed the extent to which establishment internationalism is in fact in decline. To answer this question, we first track trends in congressional foreign policy votes from the American Conservative Union (1970–2004) and Americans for Democratic Action (1948–2004). Our second set of indicators tracks the state of birth, educational profile, and formative international experience of a cross section of the U.S. foreign policy elite. Our third and fourth sets of indicators track elite attitudes as represented by presidential State of the Union addresses and major party platforms. We find support for increasing partisan polarization in Congress on foreign policy as well as increasing regional concentration of the parties. However, there is only mixed evidence to suggest that internationalism has experienced a secular decline overall. Support for international engagement and multilateral institutions remain important parts of elite foreign policy rhetoric. Moreover, we find that social backgrounds of U.S. foreign policy elites—save for military service—have not substantially changed from the height of the internationalist era.
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Lebedeva, E. "Sub-Saharan Africa: Conflicts and Development." World Economy and International Relations, no. 12 (2014): 102–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.20542/0131-2227-2014-12-102-112.
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Political instability is growing in sub-Saharan Africa. The situation has left the Sahelian countries increasingly vulnerable to insecurity resulting from armed conflicts, terrorist activities, illicit trafficking and related organized crime, ecological crisis, «resource» wars and the like. These new global and regional challenges superimposed on traditional factors, provoking conflicts (social polarization, widespread corruption, coupled with the inability of the involved governments to deliver basic services, weak administration and other). At the same time, chronic political instability is a direct result of the lack of institutionalized political dialogue, of national consensus on strategy of national security and, also, because of the continuing unwillingness of the ruling elites to engage in the development of peripheral areas. Crises in Mali and Nigeria have clearly demonstrated the «fragility» of sub-Saharan states in the face of these threats. The scale of problems in the Sahel is so great that the United Nations has proposed a new conceptual and organizational approach to their solution. Nowhere is the development–security nexus more evident than in the Sahel. Major emphasis is placed on integrated and coordinated implementation of measures in the field of security and development in the region and regional and interregional cooperation among Sahelian, West African and Maghreb states. The UN declares a top priority of “partner peacekeeping", which is based on the cooperation of the UN as the main actor with international regional organizations – the EU, AU, ECOWAS, financial institutions and donor countries as well as other bilateral partners. Currently, ensuring a coherent and mutually supportive peacekeeping of the UN and the AU becomes most urgent issue for the organizations, since the relations between them are characterized by mistrust and tension.
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Travkina, Natalya. "Left-Wing Democrats in US contemporary political system." Russia and America in the 21st Century, no. 1 (2022): 0. http://dx.doi.org/10.18254/s207054760018903-0.
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The current state of the progressive movement in the political life of the United States is analyzed. It is noted that the movement took shape politically in the early 1990s with the formation of a small faction of progressives in the House of Representatives of the US Congress. From the very beginning, the faction promoted left-wing socialist ideas, believing that the processes of globalization would only increase social differentiation in American society in terms of income distribution and accumulated wealth. The financial and economic crisis of 2007-2009 contributed to the transformation of the progressive movement into an important political force in modern America. The ideological and political polarization of American society in the 2010s contributed to the growth of not only right-wing, but also left-wing populism. As a result, in the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections Progressives played an important political role, contributing to the victory in 2020 of the Democratic candidate J. Biden. In the 116th and 117th Congresses the Progressive faction amounted to almost 100 representatives, or about 40% of the total number of Democrats in the House of Representatives. The conquest of the White House and the establishment of control of the Democratic Party over both houses of the US Congress allowed the Progressive Democrats Caucus for the first time to develop its own program of social and economic transformation in American society in the amount of about $2.5 trln to be spent within 10 years. The program is based on the principles of large-scale redistribution of financial resources from large corporations and the wealthiest segments of American society in favor of the poor and the American middle class. In addition to socio-economic reforms, the program includes the allocation of hundreds of billions of dollars to combat climate change and the gradual transition of the American economy to the "green technologies". The bill passed the US House of Representatives in November 2021, but its further fate is uncertain, since in the Senate its main opponent in the ranks of the Democratic Party was West Virginia Senator J. Manchin. It is entirely possible that in 2022 the Democrats will still be able to get parts of the Build Back Better legislation passed through Congress. In conclusion, the life path and political career of a native of India, P. Jayapal, who has been the chairman of the Progressive Democrats Caucus in the US Congress for the past three years, are covered. It is noted that, unlike past historical epochs when the main “social elevator” for immigrants of the first wave was the business sector, at present, the struggle for the rights of racial, ethnic and gender minorities plays such role.