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The United States faces a severe fiscal crisis, a crisis unparalleled since the immediate post-World War II era. Unlike then, the capacity for the U.S. to survive this crisis without serious consequence will depend on our capacity to overcome growing political polarization. This paper explores the gravity of the debt situation, outlines the recent history leading to the crisis, investigates the capacity of the U.S. to solve the crisis in a time of political polarization, and speculates on what we might expect in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the contemporary age of party polarization, moderate members of Congress have found their electoral fortunes to be dependent upon their party's control of the House. Whether Democrat or Republican, members of moderate factions surprisingly receive considerably more support—in terms of electoral strategy and finances—when their party is in the minority and less when it is in the majority. This paper examines the electoral challenges faced by members of the Democratic Blue Dog Coalition and the Republican Main Street Partnership in the election cycles of 1994 to 2008. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many Americans associate themselves with their political party in a deep, visceral way. Voter identification with a political party has powerful implications for not just how voters behave, but how there are exposed to and receive information about the world. We describe how this tying of one's self-concept to a party, which can be analogous to die-hard sports fandom, plays a central role in political cognition. It leads voters identifying with the two parties to perceive the political (and even seemingly apolitical) world in dramatically different ways. We detail the psychological mechanisms by which this party identity produces these distortions and offer examples of the bias that emerges. We conclude by discussing the implications of these phenomena for perpetuating our current hyperpolarized political discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Students of American politics are indebted to Richard Fenno's pathbreaking work, Home Style, published four decades ago. But, given the book's widespread acclaim, few have taken Fenno's prescription to go back home with members of Congress to heart. In this essay, I echo Fenno's call for scholars to become participant-observers of the political process while offering the modern "soaker and poker" a guide to the pitfalls and opportunities of pursuing such a research project. I respond to Fenno's methodological treatise, written as the appendix to Home Style, focusing in particular on gaining access and how to remain publicly engaged while observing a competitive Senate campaign. I discuss how changes in American political culture create additional wrinkles for participant observation that must be considered, especially if scholars chose to remain engaged in public outreach. I conclude by addressing the need to consider carefully the ethics of engaging the political world we study, particularly in the light of the Stanford-Dartmouth experiment scandal rocking Montana in the weeks preceding the state's 2014 judicial elections. We may not all do participant observation, but we should follow Fenno when considering the implications of interfering in the political world as we study it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American partisans are far more hostile towards out-party members than they were 40 years ago. While this phenomenon, often called affective polarization, is well-documented, political scientists disagree on its cause. One group of scholars believes that affective polarization is driven by processes related to social identity theory. In particular, cross-cutting identities have declined in America, and toxic political communication continuously primes partisan identities and resentment. Recently, several scholars have pointed to another phenomenon as the root cause of affective polarization: partisan sorting, i.e. the alignment of partisan identities with ideologically consistent issue positions. I review evidence in favor of each claim, and provide additional evidence that affective polarization has increased about as much among those who are not sorted as among those who are sorted. Furthermore, while sorting is only related to affective polarization among the most politically knowledgeable, affective polarization has increased across all levels of political knowledge. Finally, affective polarization may also increase sorting, further complicating any clear cut causal relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Partisanship continues to divide Americans. Using data from the American National Election Study, as well as implicit attitude tests, we argue that Americans' partisan identity has become highly salient. Partisans have become more negative towards the opposing party on both explicit and implicit measures, and these biases spill over into their everyday decisions. Partisanship has become one of Americans' most salient social identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analysts in the media and political world are suddenly paying attention to a debate rooted in decades of political science research. In this article, we introduce this debate and its roots in three scholarly camps, each of which is focused on explaining election outcomes - those who stress persuasion, those who stress mobilization, and those who stress fundamentals. The article argues that while each of these camps has something valuable to say about why campaigns are won and lost, none of them in and of themselves explains the ultimate outcomes of competitive national elections. For this, fundamentals matter greatly but cannot offer the final percentage points in ultimate outcomes, where marginal variance can be crucial, while turnout and persuasion together, on top of these economic and partisan fundamentals, yield small but more than occasionally decisive determinants of election outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars and pundits have usually depicted Barack Obama as a prisoner of partisan rancor in Congress, which has been especially fierce on the Republican side of the aisle. We argue, to the contrary, that he has actively - if sometimes reluctantly - embraced the role of party leader, even in the management of the bureaucracy, the arena in which the modern presidency's claim to transcend partisanship was nurtured. The Administration's public celebration of unilateralism - typified by the 'We Can't Wait' initiative - is emblematic of a far-reaching development within the presidency and American politics: the rise of an executive centered party-system, which relies on presidential candidates and presidents to pronounce party doctrine, raise campaign funds, campaign on behalf of their partisan brethren, mobilize grass roots support and advance party programs. Although this development poses hard challenges to collective responsibility and the rule of law that undergirds it, Obama's innovative administrative tactics may be the harbinger of a new paradigm that extols unilateral presidential policymaking as a habitual solution to partisan polarization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intense partisanship and the permanent election mentality permeate Congress, such that bipartisanship is rare. Yet we contend that in overlooking intra-party compromises, observers both exaggerate the negative implications of partisan polarization and inflate the merits of inter-party cooperation. We show that in situations of unified government in this polarized era, meaningful compromises to enact major legislation may occur within heterogeneous parties instead of between polarized counterparts. Through an examination of health care reform in the 111th Congress, we demonstrate the significance of these intra-party compromises. While acknowledging that partisanship and the constant campaign cycle prevented bipartisan collaboration on health care reform and created a poisonous atmosphere, we nonetheless do not fuel the common anxiety over vitriolic partisanship - the same partisanship enhanced the importance of intra-party compromise for passing landmark legislation. Given that partisan tensions are not diminishing, our research also may provide food for thought for policy analysts. The article draws on material from one author's informal, in-person conversations with over a dozen key actors in 2010 and 2011. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During every election campaign, political journalists make claims and offer interpretations that political scientists who study public opinion, campaigns, and elections know to be inaccurate. In this article, I discuss a number of misconceptions that frequently appear in media discussions of electoral polarization. Chief among these are the confusion between polarization and party sorting, along with the tendency to attribute any changes in voter behavior to changes in the voters, rather than to changes in the candidates who are running and the nature of their campaigns. Also important is the widespread confusion - much of it due to incomplete political science research this time - about independents. A significant part of what journalists get wrong no doubt reflects the unrepresentative political contexts in which they live and work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are Americans ideological, and if so, what are the foundations of their ideology? According to Converse's seminal view, whatever the case in other western democracies and despite its centrality to traditional versions of textbook democracy, the American public is distinctly non-ideological. Our objective is to compare the standard and by far most widely used measure of political ideology-a measure that presumes ideology is one-dimensional-to a more recent measure that allows for a multi-dimensional conception and measurement. This measure demonstrates that while American political elites compete across a single dimension of conflict, the American people organize their policy attitudes around two distinct dimensions, one economic and one social. After explaining how we derived the measure and how it can be used to develop five separate ideological groups, we show how these groups differ politically and why it is not possible to map their preferences onto a one-dimensional measure of ideology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For every American who identifies himself as a liberal, there are two conservatives. Practically all Republicans see themselves as such, but many Democrats are not liberals. The political system works quite well from one specific viewpoint: it delivers what the majority says it wants-rather conservative policies, including the period 2008-2012. Conservative Democrats in Congress help pass GOP items, but GOP representatives almost never vote for liberal items. The question is, given that the majority gets what it seeks, why is this majority so alienated? The article offer several explanations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the decade since Partners and Rivals: Representation in U.S. Delegations (2000) was published, Congress has experienced increased levels of party polarization. Congressional scholars have since concluded that this polarization trend has dramatically changed the context for deliberation, competition, and cooperation in the U.S. Senate. However, scholars have not explored the ties between increased polarization and representation within Senate delegations. In this article, we evaluate whether the dynamic of cooperation and competition among same-state Senators still exists along the lines identified in Partners and Rivals, or whether it has become merely a folkway of the past. We find that same-state Senators still construct distinct legislative portfolios designed to garner public attention and support, and that this still reflects a commitment to representation in the Senate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars offer differing accounts of the roles played by political elites, on the one hand, and ordinary citizens, on the other, in the highly polarized partisan conflict of contemporary American politics. Some take polarized elite conflict to indicate, in itself, that elected policymakers have escaped the constraints of democratic control and act essentially independently. In sharp contrast to this view, I outline a case for the importance of what I call polarized populism—a condition of politics in which elected officials accord very substantial deference to ordinary citizens, especially those who hold relatively extreme ideological views. I clarify the differences between elite centered and populist accounts of polarized policymaking, and then develop the argument for polarized populism, presenting theoretical considerations in support and assessing several kinds of relevant evidence. I also reply to some claims by Lawrence Jacobs and Robert Shapiro, proponents of the elite-centered view, in an earlier exchange in the Forum. In concluding, I comment briefly about some directions for research to assess the case for polarized populism and discuss some broader implications of this pattern of policymaking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, a number of media commentators and scholars have blamed primary voters for the rise of polarization in American politics. According to this argument, primary electorates are dominated by strong partisans whose views are more extreme than those of rank-and-file party supporters. This article uses data from recent exit polls of primary and general election voters as well as the 2006 Cooperative Congressional Election Study to test the primary election polarization theory. The evidence does not support the theory. In fact there appears to be very little difference between the ideologies of each party's primary voters and the ideologies of its general election voters. These findings suggest that the polarized state of American politics today reflects the polarized state of the overall American electorate rather than any peculiar characteristics of primary voters. The findings also suggest that even after they secure their party's nomination, it may be risky for candidates to adopt more moderate policy positions in order to appeal to swing voters, because any such move toward the center would risk alienating a large proportion of their party's electoral base. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]