Ideological sorting and the transformation of American politics
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This dissertation explores how American politics entered the current era where it is characterized by close electoral competition between two increasingly polarized political parties. The first and second chapters of the dissertation examine how the changing party identification of the American electorate led to close competition in congressional elections, which had been dominated by the Democratic Party from the 1930s through the 1980s. The first chapter applies a Bayesian changepoint model to identify periods where the macropartisanship of the American public (measured by Gallup surveys from 1950 to 2011) underwent major equilibrium shifts. The model identifies two distinct regimes of American politics, from 1950 to 1983 and 1983 to the present, puncuated by a large decrease in Democratic macropartisanship. The second chapter considers the sources of the equilibrium shift in party identification that was identified in the first chapter and how this equilibrium shift changed the balance of power in elections. Democrats enjoyed a large advantage in party identification until conservative Democrats (both in the South and non-South) shifted out of the party during the 1980s. The Democrats' long standing advantage in party identification had given them a major advantage in House elections and the loss of this advantage made Republicans competitive in congressional elections for the first time since the 1920s. The third chapter examines the electoral incentives for congressional polarization, studying how the ideological extremism of House incumbents has affected their probability of losing during the 20th and early 21st centuries. This chapter shows that incumbents tended to face a higher penalty for extremism during periods of low polarization, so increasing polarization has not hurt the ability of incumbents to win re-election.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2014 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Wilkins, Arjun Samuel |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of Political Science. |
| Primary advisor | Brady, David W |
| Thesis advisor | Brady, David W |
| Thesis advisor | Fiorina, Morris P |
| Thesis advisor | Jackman, Simon, 1966- |
| Advisor | Fiorina, Morris P |
| Advisor | Jackman, Simon, 1966- |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Arjun Samuel Wilkins. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of Political Science. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2014. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2014 by Arjun Samuel Wilkins
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 3.0 Unported license (CC BY-NC).
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