On the relationship between party polarization and citizen polarization

2022 ◽  
pp. 135406882110695
Author(s):  
Mert Moral ◽  
Robin E Best

Do party policy offerings simply reflect public opinion or do parties shape public demand for policies? Theories of party position-taking and the operation of democracy expect parties to track their supporters’ positions, while scholarship of public opinion has shown voters often adopt the position of their preferred parties. We apply both of these theoretical expectations to the relationship between citizen polarization and party polarization and additionally argue that the relationship between them should be stronger among more politically more engaged and sophisticated citizens. We draw on aggregated survey data from 174 cross-national and national election studies from 19 established democracies, to assess the extent to which citizen polarization responds to party polarization, the extent to which parties respond to changes in citizen polarization, and whether these relationships differ across different groups of citizens. We estimate seemingly unrelated error-correction models employing data on party and citizen positions from 1971 to 2019. Our findings suggest that citizen polarization follows party polarization and also that politically engaged and sophisticated citizens are more responsive to changes in party polarization than the politically less engaged and unsophisticated. In contrast, we find little evidence that party polarization responds to changes in citizen polarization.

Author(s):  
Dennis C. Spies

The chapter summarizes the New Progressive Dilemma (NPD) debate, identifying three arguments from comparative welfare state and party research likely to be relevant to the relationship between immigration and welfare state retrenchment: public opinion, welfare institutions, and political parties. Alignment of anti-immigrant sentiments and welfare support varies considerably between countries, especially between the US and Europe, leading to different party incentives vis-à-vis welfare state retrenchment. The chapter introduces insights from comparative welfare state and party research to the debate, discussing inter alia, political parties in terms of welfare retrenchment, immigrants as a voter group, and cross-national variation of existing welfare institutions. It addresses the complex debates around attitudinal change caused by immigration, levels of welfare support, voting behavior, and social expenditures. Combining these strands of literature, a common theoretical framework is developed that is subsequently applied to both the US and Western European context.


2019 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 790-804 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Macdonald

The United States has become increasingly unequal. Income inequality has risen dramatically since the 1970s, yet public opinion toward redistribution has remained largely unchanged. This is puzzling, given Americans’ professed concern regarding, and knowledge of, rising inequality. I argue that trust in government can help to reconcile this. I combine data on state-level income inequality with survey data from the Cumulative American National Election Studies (CANES) from 1984 to 2016. I find that trust in government conditions the relationship between inequality and redistribution, with higher inequality prompting demand for government redistribution, but only among politically trustful individuals. This holds among conservatives and non-conservatives and among the affluent and non-affluent. These findings underscore the relevance of political trust in shaping attitudes toward inequality and economic redistribution and contribute to our understanding of why American public opinion has not turned in favor of redistribution during an era of rising income inequality.


2021 ◽  
pp. 003232172199363
Author(s):  
Raimondas Ibenskas ◽  
Jonathan Polk

Are political parties in young democracies responsive to the policy preferences of the public? Compared to extensive scholarship on party responsiveness in established democracies, research on party responsiveness in young democracies is limited. We argue that weaker programmatic party–voter linkages in post-communist democracies create incentives for parties to respond to their supporters rather than the more general electorate. Such responsiveness occurs in two ways. First, parties follow shifts in the mean position of their supporters. Second, drawing on the research on party–voter congruence, we argue that parties adjust their policy positions to eliminate previous incongruence between themselves and their supporters. Analyses based on a comprehensive dataset that uses expert surveys, parties’ manifestoes and election surveys to measure parties’ positions, and several cross-national and national surveys to measure voters’ preferences provide strong support for this argument.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Devine

Asking citizens ‘the way democracy works’ is the basis of a wide literature on the support citizens have for their political institutions, and is one of the most common survey items in political science. Moreover, it is a key indicator for the purported global decline in legitimacy. Yet, its trends, levels and dynamics are still debated, and conclusions may be erroneous. In this paper, we compile a unique global dataset between 1973 and 2018 encompassing all major cross-national datasets and national election studies in 12 countries to study the dynamics and consistency of SWD measures globally. Our results show that while trends and between-country differences in democratic satisfaction are largely similar, the levels of satisfaction vary substantially between survey projects, and both trends and levels vary significantly in several widely studied countries. We show that this has consequences at the individual level: opting for one survey over another may alter our conclusions about the relationship between key demographics and SWD. Thus, researchers studying SWD should endeavour to consult diverse survey sources and should be cautious about their conclusions when they do not, especially when it comes to making claims about changes in SWD over time.


2016 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bianca Oehl ◽  
Lena Maria Schaffer ◽  
Thomas Bernauer

AbstractExplanatory models accounting for variation in policy choices by democratic governments usually include a demand (by the public) and a supply (by the government) component, whereas the latter component is usually better developed from a measurement viewpoint. The main reason is that public opinion surveys, the standard approach to measuring public demand, are expensive, difficult to implement simultaneously for different countries for purposes of crossnational comparison and impossible to implementex postfor purposes of longitudinal analysis if survey data for past time periods are lacking. We therefore propose a new approach to measuring public demand, focussing on political claims made by nongovernmental actors and expressed in the news. To demonstrate the feasibility and usefulness of our measure ofpublished opinion, we focus on climate policy in the time period between 1995 and 2010. When comparing the new measure of published opinion with the best available public opinion survey and internet search data, it turns out that our data can serve as a meaningful proxy for public demand.


2021 ◽  
pp. 106591292110096
Author(s):  
Viktor Orri Valgarðsson ◽  
Daniel Devine

Asking citizens “the way democracy works” is the basis of a wide literature on the support citizens have for their political institutions and is one of the most common survey items in political science. Moreover, it is a key indicator for the purported global decline in legitimacy. Yet, its trends, levels, and dynamics are still debated, and conclusions may be erroneous. In this paper, we compile a unique global dataset between 1973 and 2018 encompassing all major cross-national datasets and national election studies in twelve countries to study the dynamics and consistency of “satisfaction with democracy” (SWD) measures globally. Our results show that while trends and between-country differences in democratic satisfaction are largely similar, the levels of satisfaction vary substantially between survey projects, and both trends and levels vary significantly in several widely studied countries. We show that this has consequences at the individual level: opting for one survey over another may alter our conclusions about the relationship between key demographics and SWD. Thus, researchers studying SWD should endeavor to consult diverse survey sources and should be cautious about their conclusions when they do not, especially when it comes to making claims about changes in SWD over time.


2019 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 465-471
Author(s):  
Robert O. Keohane

AbstractIn their article “Just War and Unjust Soldiers: American Public Opinion on the Moral Equality of Combatants,” Scott Sagan and Benjamin Valentino argue that the American public evaluates soldiers’ wartime actions more according to whether the war they are fighting was initiated justly, than on their actions during warfare. In this respect, their views are more similar to those of revisionist philosophers than to those of traditional just war theorists. Before leaping to broad conclusions from their survey, it should be replicated. If the findings hold in the replication, intriguing questions could be asked about comparative cross-national attitudes and about the relationship between democracy and war.


2009 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 102-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian J. Grim ◽  
Richard Wike

AbstractWe address a pressing substantive issue as well as evaluate several methodologies in this article. Substantively, we ask whether the U.S. State Department has a clear understanding of the level of cross-national religious intolerance that triggers daily headlines around the globe. Methodologically, we ask whether data on social attitudes coded from systematic qualitative reports can reliably represent cross-national public opinion. We empirically address these questions by comparing cross-national levels of religious intolerance coded from the State Department's annual international religious freedom reports with relevant population survey data from the World Values Survey and the Pew Research Center, as well as with data from written interviews of country experts conducted by the Hudson Institute. The results indicate that the understanding of social religious intolerance embodied in the State Department reports is comparable with the results of population surveys and individual expert opinion. Methodologically, this suggests that cross-national public opinion survey data can be cross-validated with coded data from systematic qualitative analysis as well as with expert opinion.


2019 ◽  
Vol 83 (2) ◽  
pp. 450-471 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Patton Moberg ◽  
Maria Krysan ◽  
Deanna Christianson

ABSTRACT Racial attitudes are multidimensional, and the corresponding picture we get from survey data on racial attitudes is complex. Tracing the results of major national surveys that provide trends over at least 10 years, and with at least three time points (primarily the General Social Survey and the National Election Studies), this article reveals that complexity. Some survey questions show dramatic changes in support of racial equality, while others reveal stagnation or even increasing negativity or disinterest. The article also describes the differences between whites and blacks in patterns and trends. Although compared to some issues, the survey record on racial attitudes is robust and lengthy, we draw attention to important ways in which it is uneven. We conclude by highlighting areas for future research that focus on improved survey measures that will capture more fully the complexity of contemporary public opinion on racial matters.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Alexander Hemingway

Abstract Do the class backgrounds of legislators shape their views and actions relating to inequality and economic policy? Building on findings about ‘white-collar government’ in the US, this article examines the relationship between legislators’ class and their attitudes and self-reported behaviour in advanced democracies, drawing on survey data from 15 countries including 73 national and subnational parliaments in Europe and Israel. I find that legislators from business backgrounds are more likely to support income inequality and small government, as well as less likely to consult with labour groups, than those from working-class and other backgrounds. These results are buttressed by analysis of an additional cross-national survey of European legislative candidates’ attitudes, which replicates key findings. Given the skewed class makeup of legislatures in advanced democracies, these findings may be relevant to our understanding of widespread economic and political inequalities that are increasingly salient in many countries.


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