Last week, I linked to my comments at the TPM Book Club on Mark Hetherington and Jonathan Weiler’s book _Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics_. I post two criticisms of the book, both intended as friendly and constructive. Marc and Jonathan replied here. Marc and I then began some further correspondence via email. The comments below capture my synthesis of these exchanges.
The underlying question: Is the American public more polarized today than in some previous period?
My definition of polarization is that citizens locate themselves at the “poles” or endpoints of the range of possible opinions. Polarization could describe a current state of affairs or a process in progress.
By that definition, I do not think that the American public is strongly polarized or more polarized than in previous eras where we have decent surveys available. This book by Morris Fiorina, Samuel Abrams, and Jeremy Pope presents some relevant data. The exceptions to that generalization involve opinions about the Iraq War and recent presidents, particularly Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama, as Gary Jacobson has shown. I am not citing all of the relevant literature here, including some work that disagrees with Fiorina et al. (e.g., this paper by Alan Abramowitz and Kyle Saunders). I am merely stating my beliefs based on that literature.
Marc and Jonathan raise some objections to this. Based on their book and my correspondence with Marc, I think there are two:
1) Survey measures are flawed. First, the response options are truncated and may not capture just how “extreme” opinions are. Perhaps people would say that they “love” or “hate” Obama, but all the pollster asks are “approve” and “disapprove.” Second, people not express strongly negative views to an interviewer, out of an effort to appear polite. Perhaps they self-censor.
2) This definition of polarization misses important political phenomena. Marc and Jonathan see polarization manifested in different ways, such as episodes of collective action driven by fervent beliefs (e.g., the Vietnam War protests), heated political rhetoric, and an apparent unwillingness to appreciate the opposite side’s motives and point of view. Marc and Jonathan see these latter two as endemic in contemporary American politics. All of these contribute to polarization, in their view.
I am somewhat skeptical that #1 presents a serious confound. First, it seems more common for people to avoid even the milquetoast extremes presented in typical survey questions than to feel as if those extremes aren’t extreme enough. There are plenty of examples where people cluster in the middle — e.g., the standard measure of self-identified ideology, attitudes toward abortion, etc. Second, I’m simply not sure that people are always shy about expressing “extreme” statements. Substantial numbers seem to have no problem expressing doubt about Obama’s legitimacy.
I am sympathetic to #2, however. Simply looking at the distribution of opinions on survey questions may not tell us everything. The phenomena that Marc and Jonathan highlight are indeed important. And the central finding of their book — that authoritarianism structures attitudes toward important issues and, in 2004, party identification — implies that these phenomena (e.g., visible anger) may be here to stay.
I have two further responses. One is whether we should call these other phenomena “polarization.” I prefer to limit the meaning of that term. To me, what Marc and Jonathan are describing are things like “intense conflict” and “intolerance for the opposition.” Such things may be more likely in a polarized public, but they are not a necessary indicator or consequence of polarization. A lot of the visible anger and protest activity could come from minorities at either ideological pole. Even if those people are few and far between their commitment magnifies their visibility and, perhaps, their importance. But they shouldn’t obscure that the majority of the public resides the mushy middle, even amidst political warfare.
I am also unsure whether contemporary politics is really characterized by more anger or intolerance for the opposition or what have you. I don’t know what the appropriate comparison would be, but thinking back, it strikes me that these qualities are somewhat endemic. Sure, accusations about Obama’s birthplace seem angry and extreme, but more so than accusations that the Clintons murdered people? Or that Thomas Jefferson was a “howling atheist,” according to some Federalists? My anecdotes don’t qualify as data, obviously. But it is tricky to come up with measures that would show American politics to be more “polarized,” even by this expanded definition. Of course, ideological polarization is evident among elites. But other possible measures of this expanded definition — e.g., the negativity of political campaigns — suggest no conclusive answer. (Compare the findings of John Geer to those of Lee and Emmett Buell.)
None of this is to detract from the central finding in Marc and Jonathan’s book. I believe that authoritarianism is alive and well and that it matters for contemporary political issues. Whether it matters more than before is harder to tell, as I pointed out at TPM, but that doesn’t take away from its current relevance. Connecting the apparent potency of authoritarianism to the potential presence of and growth in polarization seems to be the crucial next step.