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  • How Polarization Begets Polarization: Ideological Extremism in the US Congress

    How Polarization Begets Polarization by Merrill III, Samuel; Grofman, Bernard; Brunell, Thomas L.;

    Ideological Extremism in the US Congress

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      • Publisher's listprice GBP 68.00
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    32 487 Ft

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    Product details:

    • Publisher OUP USA
    • Date of Publication 22 December 2023

    • ISBN 9780197745229
    • Binding Hardback
    • No. of pages194 pages
    • Size 156x235x14 mm
    • Weight 413 g
    • Language English
    • 472

    Categories

    Short description:

    This book explains the feedback loop that generates ever-increasing polarization--the signature feature of contemporary American politics. This loop is powered by the discipline exerted by the respective political parties and their activists on both their Congressional members and their district candidates. The authors show that tight party discipline produces party delegations in Congress that are widely separated from one another but each ideologically concentrated--in a word, polarized.

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    Long description:

    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.

    Among the leading students of the increasing polarization of American politics, the authors of this important new book lay out a novel institutional perspective on the interaction between polarization in Congress and competition at the district level.

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    Table of Contents:

    Acknowledgements
    Part I: Where Did Polarization Come From and Why is it Getting Worse?
    Chapter 1. Making Sense of Polarization
    Chapter 2. How Does Party Discipline Generate Polarization?
    Chapter 3. Why, Even in Highly Competitive Districts, Are Candidate Positions so Different?
    Chapter 4. Heterogeneity across Districts and Within-district Partisan Gap and Proclivity
    Part II: Conseqences of Polarization
    Chapter 5. How Do Party Loyalty and Activist Influence Foster Mobilizing the Base?
    Chapter 6. Consequences of Polarized Politics
    Chapter 7. Discussion and Conclusions
    Appendices
    Appendix to Chapter 1: Literature Review on Causes of Polarization
    Appendix to Chapter 2: The Party-constraint Model
    Appendix to Chapter 3: Relation between Candidate and District Ideology: Statistical and Theoretical Analyses
    Appendix to Chapter 4: Components of Legislative Polarization
    Appendix to Chapter 5: Derivations for the Appeal-to-the-Base Model
    Appendix to Chapter 6: Derivations relating to Chamber and Party Medians
    Bibliography

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