The Strategic Advantage of Polarization: Why and How Parties Enact Fringe Legislation

• In Event: 50416 - Political Organizations

Abstract

Why and how do political parties enact fringe legislation that runs counter to public interest and demand? In liberal democracies with competitive elections, political parties are expected to have moderating effects, pursuing centrist political programs in order to build broad electoral coalitions. Yet, American politics since the 2010s has been marked by the rapid and widespread adoption of ideologically extreme policy programs, a trend driven by Republican-controlled state legislatures. Prevailing explanations attribute this trend to interest group partisanship, arguing that ideologically-committed activists and interest groups lock lawmakers into extreme policy agendas by gatekeeping party nominations and issue agendas. Parties enact fringe legislation, because they have no other option. Alternatively, this paper argues that interest group partisanship can expand parties’ strategic flexibility under certain conditions. In settings with less interest group partisanship, party leaders’ face multiple, often competing, demands, and their strategic policy options are constrained by the need to build and maintain political coalition. Conversely, in cases of extensive interest group partisanship, the diversity of groups within a single party coalition is reduced and, with it, the imperative to moderate policy positions. Freed of the constraints that come with coalition management, party leaders enjoy greater strategic flexibility. This expanded strategic flexibility enables party leaders to craft and frame policy in ways that mobilize allies and demobilize opposition. These arguments are illustrated in a comparative-historical analysis of restrictive labor reforms in two industrial midwestern states.

Author

• Johnnie Lotesta, Appalachian State University