Bridging the Blue Divide

• In Event: Spatial Dynamics of the American Political Economy

Abstract

Over the past generation Democrats have lost ground in rural America while adding strength in cities and, more recently, suburbs. The rise of the new, metro-based Democratic Party has coincided with the emergence of a post-industrial economy that is similarly concentrated in major metropolitan areas. We map the internal cleavages in the Party associated with this dual transformation. To what extent has this economic transformation facilitated the political one? Does the new economy largely support a commonality of political interest between suburb and city, or have Democrats had to cope with new divisions? To the extent that these new divisions have emerged, what strategies have Democrats developed to manage them? We argue that the economic cleavages within this new metro-based coalition are in fact acute, yet Democrats have managed these cleavages less by shifting to social appeals than by carefully curating their economic agenda in order to minimize intra-coalitional conflict.

Authors

• Jacob S. Hacker, Yale University

• Paul Pierson, University of California, Berkeley