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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Power of Identity: The Consequences of Party Polarization for the Attitudes and Behaviors of the Mass Public.

The Power of Identity: The Consequences of Party Polarization for the Attitudes and Behaviors of the Mass Public.

Murakami, Michael Hughes

Paperback

Philosophy

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ISBN10: 1243999772
ISBN13: 9781243999771
Publisher: Proquest Umi Dissertation Pub
Pages: 198
Weight: 0.80
Height: 0.42 Width: 7.44 Depth: 9.69
Language: English
Over the past 50 years, the Democratic and Republican Parties have become ideologically polarized. This is leading to extremism among political elites and gridlock in the nation's capital, but the consequences for ordinary citizens remain uncertain. The leading characterization in the discipline is that a largely centrist, ambivalent, and ideologically innocent public is not becoming more ideologically extreme over time. If anything, the political system is being hijacked away from the median voter by an ideologically fringe but active minority of the population. In my dissertation, I argue that party polarization is affecting the political attitudes and behaviors of the mass public by increasing the potency of party identifications as social identities. Though they are not becoming more ideologically extreme, citizens are becoming more biased in their perceptions of party and candidate ideology and more partisan in their more general attitudes and evaluations of important political actors. These trends cannot be explained fully by changing ideological proximities between voters and candidates so often employed in spatial models to explain polarization's impact. As conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats become increasingly the norm, ideologically atypical partisans, pure Independents, and unaffiliated citizens are being discouraged by the polarized political environment. Thus while polarization may increase overall participation, it is reducing partisan-ideological diversity and shrinking the pool of potential swing voters. I also find that party loyalty and straight-ticket voting are on the rise, effects also not fully explained by perceived changes in candidates' ideological proximity. I conclude that though voters may remain largely moderate, they are also partisan and so not immune increasing salience, changing content, and growing strength of Democratic and Republican identities.

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