Negative Partisanship In Politics

The growing ideological gap between the United States’ two major political parties, in other words, rising levels of political polarization, has had a negative impact on American politics as it results in Congressional inefficient, public apathy, and economic inequality.

Sometimes this takes the form of wooing legislators, including legislators of another political party or ideological persuasion. When polarization and partisanship make such wooing hard if not impossible, that same ambition is likely to take the form of aiding the election of candidates who can be counted on to support one's

Over the past three decades, parties and partisan organizations have evolved to become key features of today’s House of Representatives; the two are now essential to congressional policy and the member’s careers. In the article “Presentation of Partisanship: Constituency Connections and Partisan Congressional Activity,” published in the Social Science Quarterly (2009), Scott R. Meinke investigates how House members explain and frame their participation in partisan activity to constituency representation. In simpler terms, Meinke examines the role of partisanship in strategic home-style choices. The author uses data from the 107th, 109th, and 110th Congresses, with a focus on the member’s public websites and how they present leadership activity to conclude that Congressional parties have an impact beyond electoral outcomes and the policy process. Meinke discovers that there exists a significant difference in the extent to which members of the House publicize their activity.

Partisanship is defined in The American Voter “as both a set of beliefs and feelings that culminate in a sense of “psychological attachment” to a political party. It is one of the most important factors affecting the American political system. It explains, to some extent, vote choice, political engagement, partisan reasoning, and the influence of partisan elites. This definition generates two competing views of partisanship, the instrumental and expressive perspectives. This debate is what

Studies conclude that citizens who tend to classify themselves as either conservative or liberal tend to have opposing political and policy views (p. 571). This means that social opinions alone does not have a significant or resilient influence in elite or mass polarization. This leads us to our next variable, partisan elections.

Polarization is increasing. Good or bad, the electorate is dividing more and more down party lines. Voters are struggling against each other in increasingly rigid groups with increasingly rigid ideologies. In Polarized Public Alan Abramowitz catalogs the data showing this trend through time (2013). The trend towards the poles of American politics has continues since his studies and shows no sign of stopping.

Disconnected is essentially a book in two parts. The first is an extensive compendium of data in support of the claim that there is indeed a widening disconnect between a largely moderate voting public and an ideological polarized political class. The second part is the story of how that disconnect came about. Fiorina argues in “Disconnect” that America’s social evolution has increased the homogeneity within the parties and widened the differences between them, a dynamic that encourages politicians to “construct electoral coalitions out of group building blocks

At a basic level, since the 1970s, Republican and Democrat voters have taken a progressively adverse view of the other party’s members. To further measure polarization, the author defines three types of polarization: partisan polarization, opinion radicalization, and issue alignment. Partisan polarization is the sorting of people into the two major parties in the US, which now has all liberals and all conservatives in separate parties. This is unlike the southern Democrats and liberal Republicans in the past. Opinion radicalization is the process in which people gravitate away from the political center to more extreme positions. The author states that this effect

In 1796, in his Farewell Address, George Washington warned against the “party passions” that weaken public administration, afflict the community, promote animosity between different sectors, and as a result, render the American nation vulnerable to foreign invasion. Political polarization is most simply defined as the divide between Liberals and Conservatives or between Republicans and Democrats. According to measurements from DW-NOMINATE, a system that gives politicians a score based on how liberal or conservative they are, polarization has been rising steadily for the past four decades. The general consensus among scholars is that the United States has not heeded the first president’s warning;

States, through their electoral votes, are a central focal point for political polarization. So much so that states have become divided and simplified into solid red states, blues states, and purple competitive states (Abramowitz and Saunders, 2008). In President Obama’s first term, the House was instrumental in passing an economic recovery package and health care reform. These policies and actions, in turn, affected the state partisan political environment.

Partisanship in America is when you feel an emotional attachment to the Democratic or Republican Party. Independent voters don’t have this attachment because these voters don’t

Hillygus analyzed whether the polarization in Washington, DC was representative of the American public in “The Nature of Political Ideology in the Contemporary Electorate”. They did this by focusing on responses to 23 questions from the 2000 American National Election Study that reflect a variety of politically relevant issues (Treier and Hillygus 684). This way, they could see how well a person’s policy positions correlated to their ideological identification. These questions covered both economic and social issues, so they were able to look at economic/social policy positions as independent of each other (Treier and Hillygus 686). While many political scientists agree that economic and social issues are separate issue areas, this mindset is not reflected in America’s two-party system. This could potentially muzzle voters whose economic and social policy positions do not line up with the same

Greg A. Caldeira and Fred I. Greenstein tested to see if this phenomena was as prevalent as believed, co-writing an article titled “Partisan Orientation and

Partisanship has always existed in the United States. Though, there have been periods of decline and resurgence. But since the 1970s America has seen an increase in “party unity” votes in Congress. From 2009 to 2012 party unity votes was around 70%, a clear indication of polarization in Washington. The ideological differences that exist within Congress is also indicative of the attitude of the general public. A majority of people are willing to call themselves Democrats or Republicans. “Party identification, like other attitudes, affects beliefs as well as opinions.” Party affiliation is a significant tool to predict tendencies of voters, those that associate themselves with the Republican Party tend to vote Republican and those associated with the Democratic Party tend to vote Democrat. Presidential performance ratings are indication of polarization amongst the parties. Republicans tend to give a higher approval rating for Republicans and lower rating for Democrats, and the opposite is true for Democrats. Elections and politics in America have become more polarized than ever before. The foundation that created a more polarized America can be found in the changes in the media, campaign financing, and the way candidates are elected.

Recent U.S. elections, both congressional and presidential, have revealed a dramatic increase in polarization in american politics and society. In a time of such great disagreement, investigating instances in which polarization has occurred in the past remains an important way of understanding how empathy and compromise can be improved in the present. Polarization is not a new phenomenon, and has often been the cause of major internal conflict within a nation, whether it be during the Civil War, Civil Rights Movement, or our own modern era.