Graham Pfeiffer – Alford, Hibbing, Smith Chapter 9: Can Conservaton and Liberalville Survive Together?
In Chapter 9 of their book, Predisposed, Hibbing, Smith and Alford argue that biology has a role to play in making people predisposed to specific political views. They create a hypothetical world in which three towns, (Conservaton, Liberalville and Middletown), represent the ideological basis of American politics. They argue that conservatives will never understand liberals and vice versa. Liberals and conservatives “see, understand and describe the world differently” and it influences their politics. The authors see the people of America speaking different political languages. The authors of this piece do not give a definitive solution, in fact state, “No magic institutional formula can make divided politics go away.” (pg. 261) They do offer two necessary steps towards resolving the problem of the political language disconnect.
The first solution they offer is to stop trying to convince the other side that your world view is correct. Whether you are liberal or conservative, time is wasted trying to convince people that will never see the world in the same way. The authors believe that predispositions cannot be “gamed.” This means that the democrats can’t speak in conservative terms and frame their views for conservatives and be successful and the same applies to republicans and liberal values. So the authors advise an acceptance of the opposite sides’ political views. The authors state that political opinions are correct for you but to “be humble about them and recognize that they will not and cannot lead to the kind of society everyone wants because not everyone has the same perceptions of reality and therefore of the most desirable social arrangements.” (pg. 255-256) The authors recognize that factions cannot be destroyed and quote Madison’s two ways of destroying factions. One, by taking away the liberty that gives people the right to express opinions. Second, is to force everyone to have the same political opinions. Since this is not feasible, the best possible solution is to empower the people who pay attention to the interests of more than their own faction in a representative government.
The second recommendation comes from a problem created by the first recommendation. Representative democracy exacerbates the problems of factions. So if neither direct democracy, nor representative democracy helps the problem, what will? The authors say that it is the structure of the American political system that makes representative democracy apart of the problem. They say that conservatives and liberals disproportionately define the choices of collective action. They state that people who are only concerned about their faction are in control of the government and leads the head-butting we see in politics. Their solution? A reformed system that allows moderates a larger political role to support candidates that can bridge the gap. “It is impossible to avoid the implications of predispositions and the best that can be done is to manage these predispositions that insures we count, rather than bash, heads to resolve differences.” (pg. 261) This is not a solution, but a guide to how we form policy moving forward to fix the way our government runs.
Jack Helms – Persily Chapter 3: Asymmetric Polarization
Chapter 3 of Solutions to Political Polarization in America deals with asymmetric polarization. In the United States, the republican party, or “the right” has been moving to the extreme more so than the democratic party or “the left.” According to DW Nominate scores, more conservative or extreme republicans have replaced moderate republicans and southern democrats. Also, GOP supreme court nominations have become more conservative over the past 75 years. Finally, constitutional hardball has become more common. However, this is harder to quantify, and the argument can be made that both sides have done more hard balling. However, there is also evidence that liberal hard balling is always in reaction to the conservatives.
There are multiple reasons why the GOP has become more extreme over the years. First, the GOP base is both large and intense, leading to the candidates needing to be more intense to match their constituents. Also, the GOP media presence is large and extremely partisan, and there is not a match on the left.
To combat the asymmetric polarization, most analysts point to the “Downsian” theory. This theory states that political outcomes will stay central. However, the downsian theory has not explained why asymmetric polarization has not decreased over time. The “downsian corrective” of the fear of losing elections forcing moderation has not happened. The problem with the current downsian theory is that the incentives to moderate are far lower than the pressures to stay extreme.
There are three stated reforms that might be helpful in solving the asymmetric polarization happening right now. First, the norms of moderation must be reestablished. Engaging in political hardball has become the norm because the punishments for doing so are too weak. The best way to raise punishments is through the media and elite discourse. The mainstream media needs to be more aggressive and open about holding politicians accountable. Also, businesses and elites that interact with politicians must hold them accountable as well.
Second, the incentives for obstruction must be lowered. Obstruction commonly refers to filibustering and similar strategies. It has limited policy victories and lowered cooperation between parties. Institutional change is needed for policymakers and reformers.
Finally, the forces of moderation within the GOP need to be strengthened. In the 1980s and 90s, an organization called the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) formed to keep the democratic party moderate. The GOP needs their equivalent to take a stand.
The chapter finishes by saying that no one solution will make a large difference, but rather a combination of multiple solutions finally making the biggest difference in curbing asymmetric polarization.
Karan Gupta – Persily Chapter 12: Data Science for the People
Candidates are very strategic about entering races. If voters, starved of the types of information needed to distinguish between candidates on the basis of ideology, fail to sufficiently reward candidates for their centrism and fail to punish others for their extremism, moderates become less likely to bear the cost of entry and less likely to win when they do.
Most experts doubt that ordinary citizens can ‘reason coherently about politics’, in other words they doubt the competence of voters. The question is whether voters actually lack the skills necessary to reason coherently about politics or whether they simply lack the information needed to do so. The key study in this group shows that voters are incapable of distinguishing moderate voters from the rest. Sniderman and Stiglitz examined whether voter competence was due to lack of ability or lack of information by asking whether respondents were able to apply spatial reasoning skills when choosing between candidates if the ideological position of candidates were taken as known. Their study revealed that voters were able to choose candidates closest to their preference after they were shown a visual cue about positions of candidates. This showed that the lack of voter competence was due to a lack of information not a lack of any inherent reasoning skills. Increasing the supply of candidate-information to voters could thus reduce partisan polarization, assuming that they would be more likely to support moderate candidates.
Many people view political donors as part of the problem, on the contrary they can be seen as part of the solution. Federal and state election agencies collect and disclose contribution records to safeguard democracy by increasing transparency. However, these databases can double as vast repositories of observational data on revealed political preferences. Donors carefully seek out political candidates who share their political preferences and this offers a way to learn about candidates and thus predict how they would behave if elected to office. This offers valuable information regarding the donors’ ideological preferences and the ideology of the candidates they support. Evidence shows that the predicted changes in congressional polarization measured by DW nominate scores track the actual changes. The significance of this methodology is that it can be used to help voters make informed decisions in the ballot booth since the measure can accurately predict how candidates would vote if they were elected to office. It offers an indication of which candidates will be most likely to serve as moderates and which will be most likely to serve as extremists. Until now, most methods to measure ideology have depended on legislative voting records, and these do not have the ability to measure the ideology of non-incumbent candidates before they take office. This has prevented information from being provided to voters regarding non-incumbent candidates. The result of this new method (assuming voters are more likely to support moderates given correct information) would be a reduction in elite polarization. This would eventually lead to more centrist Congressional members being elected and less ideological extreme members.
DCSI - American Politics 