Particular Polarization: Locating Partisan Divergence in U.S. Public Opinion

• In Event: 20409 - Elections and Partisan Politics

Abstract

Political and ideological polarization have intensified in the United States over the last several decades. Prior work has examined this intensification not only in absolute terms but also by identifying asymmetries in both the manner and the degree of each major party's contribution to polarization. Less clear, however, is the question of whether this partisan polarization is the result of actual opinion change rather than simple sorting of partisanship according to particular social subgroups. In this study we provide an updated summary of the degree to which changes within each major party have contributed to the polarization of one index of spending preferences and to another of moral preferences. We then investigate the sources of these average party opinion changes: whether they were due to changes in the opinions of partisans; to sorting of partisanship by opinion; to sorting of partisanship by characteristics such as race, gender, or education; or to changes in party populations due to cohort replacement or migration. We use a series of Blinder-Oaxaca decompositions to assess how much of the change in each party's opinions on these issues has been due to these factors. Preliminary analysis suggests that over time there have been three eras of polarization since the late 1970s, each with distinct patterns of partisan opinion change. Within these eras, Democratic opinion has become substantially more liberal due to party sorting on educational attainment and occasionally on race and religion, as well as due to factors including changes of minds, party sorting on opinions, and cohort replacement. Republicans became more liberal in the early period and more conservative subsequently, due primarily to factors other than sorting on subgroups.

Authors

• David Skalinder, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Kristinn Már Ársælsson, Duke Kunshan University