Red and Blue Nation? Characteristics and Causes of America's Polarized
Politics
Volume One edited by Pietro S. Nivola and David W. Brady
Published by The Brookings Institution, 2006, 317 pages
Red and Blue Nation asks if the US is becoming a polarized nation of two
different cultures moving in opposite directions. Has the growing partisan
divide impaired the democratic policy process?
Set up as a debate in five arenas by experts in their fields, each chapter
features a main argument, followed by Comments and sometimes by Rejoinders.
Surprisingly, the main case in each chapter is one for a moderate
interpretation while the Commentators see the evidence as giving more cause
for alarm.
Scholars agree that Congress has become more polarized over the last few
decades but they disagree about whether the extent of party polarization is
outside the normal range of our history. They also disagree about whether
this polarization reflects a real culture war within the population or just
an exaggeration of normal divisions.
Simple assessment of the "evidence" is complicated by the fact that party
polarization is greatest among the most politically active citizens and
least among those who don't vote at all. Since the former are more likely to
push the levers of power, does it matter if those who don't act also don't
differ?
It helps to keep things in perspective. Party differences have grown
greater within the lifetime of those now writing, but not within the
lifetime of the country. The late 19th and early 20th centuries — as the
country shifted from an agricultural to an industrial economy creating an
urban-rural conflict over many moral issues — saw much more partisan
passion than we see today. The Depression precipitated another great
debate. Even these conflicts did not reach the extent of polarization that
led to the Civil War.
In separate chapters, different authors ask whether the country is
polarized by religion, the mass media, and partisan gerrymandering. While
they don't agree (this is, after all, a debate), they do remind us that
while some things change, others remain the same.
Red and blue counties highlight that the urban-rural dimension is as
present today as it was a century ago. Race, region and class still matter
greatly when people vote and when they give their opinions to pollsters.
But religion also matters greatly, more than it did in the middle of the
20th Century and in ways different than it did in the 19th. A hundred years
ago, outside the South, Catholics voted Democratic and Protestants voted
Republican. Now it is frequency of religious attendance that best predicts
party preference, at least for whites, not religious denomination.
Ironically, the increase in news sources has made it less likely that
voters will receive a "balance" of views. When the choices were few,
everyone listened to pretty much the same news outlets. When they became
numerous and diverse, people chose the ones that reflected their own
predispositions. Self-insulation promoted cultural and political insularity.
The ability of state legislatures to manipulate the shape and content of
Congressional Districts at least once every ten years (more for Texas) is
often blamed for exaggerating the differences that exist. However, on
closer examination this effect appears to be modest.
State legislatures have succeeded in reducing competitive Congressional
Districts, but this by itself has not led to the partisan gulf that
currently makes the US Congress such an antagonistic assembly. The real
source of divisiveness is not state legislators, but voters.
This is only the first of two volumes. Among the many issues not covered in this volume is gender (or sex, as we used to call it). The modern gender gap is
not a simple phenomenon and it has rippled further than partisanship at the
voting booth. Sex (both attitudes toward and gender) is a key component of
the culture war. It should not be ignored in a study of party polarization.
We are used to hearing about the difference in how men and women vote for
President, but in the 2006 Congressional races the gender gap varied from
zero to ten percent. Anything with that much variability on the same day
cries out for explanation.
Nor is it limited to voters. The fact that Democrats are willing to
nominate more women than Republicans has many ramifications. At least
two-thirds of all women serving in the state legislatures, as Governors and
in the US Congress are Democrats. Is this a consequence of polarization,
or a cause? Does it make a difference in setting policy priorities?
This is a readable book, full of useful information and provocative ideas.
The publisher smartly put the footnotes at the bottom of each page making it
much easier to follow those points on which there is elaboration. If you
like to talk politics, you'll find plenty here with which to make people
listen.
Note: The Brookings Institution provides a chapter: http://www3.brookings.edu/press/books/chapter_1/redandbluenation.pdf
Jo Freeman is a political scientist and attorney. Her most recent book is At Berkeley in the Sixties: Education of an Activist (Indiana U. Press 2004).
Her previous book, A Room at a Time: How Women Entered Party Politics, (Rowman and Littlefield, 2000) was reviewed by Emily Mitchell, a Senior Women Web Culture Watch critic.
Jo's other books include: "The Politics of Women's Liberation" (1975), winner of a 1975 prize from the American Political Science Association for the Best Scholarly Book on Women and Politics; five editions of "Women: A Feminist Perspective" (ed.). She has also edited "Social Movements of the Sixties and Seventies" (1983), and (with Victoria Johnson) "Waves of Protest: Social Movements Since the Sixties." She has a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago (1973) and a J.D. from New York University School of Law (1982). Read more by and about Jo, including her books, at http://www.jofreeman.com and email her with comments and questions at joreen@jofreeman.com
©2007 Jo Freeman for SeniorWomenWeb
