Political Polarization in American Politics

Political Polarization in American Politics provides short, accessible chapters about the nature and extent of political polarization within the American public and in American political institutions. These chapters capture the central ideas and debates in political science research on polarization, and are written by leading scholars in this subfield. Each chapter is accompanied by discussion questions and a guide to further reading, making this a great addition to any course looking at issues of polarization.

Table of Contents:
Preface Contributors 1. What we know and don’t know about our polarized politics—Nolan McCarty How are we polarized? 2. Partisan warfare is the problem—Sean Theriault 3. How U.S. state legislatures are polarized and getting more polarized—Boris Shor 4. Our politics is polarized on more issues than ever before—Thomas Carsey and Geoffrey Layman 5. How politically moderate Americans? Less than it seems—Christopher Hare and Keith Poole 6. Americans aren’t polarized, just better sorted—Morris Fiorina and Samuel Abrams 7. Are politicians and activists reliably 'more extreme' than voters? A skeptical perspective– David Broockman 8. Party polarization is making us more prejudiced—Lilliana Mason 9. Politics stops at the water’s edge? Not recently—Robert Lieber Why are we polarized? 10. The two key factors behind our polarized politics—Jeff Stonecash 11. American politics is more competitive than ever, and that’s making partisanship worse—Frances Lee 12. How race and religion have polarized American voters—Alan Abramowitz 13. How ideological activists constructed our polarized parties—Hans Noel 14. How better educated whites are driving political polarization—Andrew Gelman 15. Are Fox and MSNBC polarizing America?—Matthew Levendusky 16. Why you shouldn’t blame polarization on partisan news—Kevin Arceneaux 17. The media make us think we’re more polarized than we really are—Matthew Levendusky and Neil Malhotra Polarization Abroad 18. Sure, Congress is polarized. But other legislatures are more so—David Brady 19. Canada is polarizing—and it’s because of the parties—Richard Johnston 20. In Britain, polarization could be the solution—Rob Ford What Can Be Done? 21. Our politics may be polarized, but that’s nothing new—David Brady and Hahrie Hahn 22. Polarization in Congress has risen sharply. Where is it going next?—Christopher Hare, Keith Poole, and Howard Rosenthal 23. Can young voters break the cycle of polarization?—Robert Shapiro 24. How to fix our polarized politics? Strengthen political parties—Richard Pildes 25. Our political parties are network, not fragmented—Seth Masket 26. Gridlock is bad. The alternative is worse—Morris Fiorina