The Changing Polarization of Party Ideologies: The Role of Sorting

Satyajit Chatterjee () and Burcu Eyigungor

No 23-07, Working Papers from Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia

Abstract: U.S. congressional roll-call voting records show that as polarization of the two parties along the economic dimension changes, polarization along the social/cultural dimension tends to change in the opposite direction. A model of party competition within a two-dimensional ideology space is developed in which party platforms are determined by voters who compose the party. It is shown that if distribution of voter preferences is radially symmetric, polarization of party ideologies along the two dimensions are inversely related, as observed. The model gives a remarkably good quantitative account of the historically observed movements in polarization along the two dimensions.

Keywords: Polarization; Primaries; partisanship; partisan politics; Political Economy; partisan sorting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 33
Date: 2023-02-28
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-mic and nep-pol
Note: Superseded by WP 24-04: https://doi.org/10.21799/frbp.wp.2024.04
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Related works:
Working Paper: The Changing Polarization of Party Ideologies: The Role of Sorting (2024)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedpwp:96169

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DOI: 10.21799/frbp.wp.2023.07

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