Partisan Polarization Essay

Causes and Consequences of Partisan Polarization While many citizens and pundits can attest to the existence of political polarization, many academics may still ask, does polarization exist? And, if so, what is it? The scholars who define polarization as institutional dysfunction tend to focus on measuring congressional performance and policy positions (Binder 2015, Mayhew 1991). Other scholars tend to differentiate between social polarization and issue polarization (Mason 2014), in which polarization happens not because of issue differentiation, but simply because partisans have inherently conflicting social identities. This essay will detail, first, the sources of polarization which are rooted in demographic change, social dislocation, elite

This reasons for this are multivariate, but chief among them were racial prejudices that southern democrats held. As the Democratic party committed to civil rights and racial equality across this period, Nixon and the Republicans committed to the Southern strategy which involved exploiting racial prejudices in the south. The democratic defection of whites was also accelerated by immigration in 1980, as a resurfacing of racial animosities against (particularly Latino) immigrants led to white party realignment (Abrajano and Hajnal 2015). These demographic changes between the parties increased polarization as the parties took clear positions on immigration that were and remain fundamentally dichotomous. Additionally, we know political elites can use messages that trigger this kind of racial anxiety which results in voters seeking protection from perceived racial threat (Albertson and Gadarian

The battle for political control of congressional institutions may displace cooperation on issues even where there is common ground between parties. Lastly, as mentioned before, social polarization has increased as identities and partisanship have come into alignment. This type of partisanship is highly influenced by social psychology and in group bias. Specifically, as people become more aligned, people are more likely to be active on behalf of the party as well as react more strongly to perceived threats or challenges (Mason 2014).
The Results of Polarization Polarization has had measurable consequences on the American political system. First and foremost, congress has become an increasingly dysfunctional institution, becoming less capable of passing legislation on salient issues in the modern era (Binder 2015). These issues are exacerbated by the presence of new splits within parties themselves, such as the tea party caucus and later the freedom caucus within the Republican party. This has proved particularly interesting, because from a larger perspective it is not necessarily congruent with the insecure majorities hypothesis – these caucuses will not increase the odds of a majority in the congress. However, they do increase the voice and influence of the caucus in terms of intraparty