The Consequences of Social Pressures on Partisan Opinion Dynamics

Shyam Gouri Suresh and Scott Jeffrey
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Scott Jeffrey: Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

Eastern Economic Journal, 2017, vol. 43, issue 2, No 4, 242-259

Abstract: Abstract We simulate an agent-based model of opinion dynamics in a two-party framework to analyze party- and polity-wide consequences of social pressures that compel individuals to publicly conform to their party line. The model indicates that opinions polarize over time despite being initialized uniformly across most members of both parties. Further, the socially acceptable range of opinions in each party and the level of partisanship prevalent in the polity play an important role in determining the membership sizes of both parties, the median opinions of both parties and the polity, and the level of polarization within and across parties.

Keywords: Overton Window; opinion dynamics; political polarization; partisanship; D70; C63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
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Working Paper: The Consequences of Social Pressures on Partisan Opinion Dynamics (2014)
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DOI: 10.1057/eej.2016.6

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