The Center Cannot Hold
By THOMAS B. EDSALL, NYT
If you ask them, Americans will tell you that they want constructive compromise and a more conciliatory political regime, even though they are reluctant to reach agreement when it comes to the specific issues that they actually care about.
In “Why American Political Parties Can’t Get Beyond the Left-Right Divide,” three experts on voting behavior argue that proponents of a revival of a less divisive politics should keep their hopes down.
The core of the argument made at a conference last month at the University of Akron by the political scientists Edward Carmines of Indiana University, Michael Ensley of Kent State University and Michael Wagner of the University of Wisconsin lies in the graphic representation in Figure 1, which shows the distribution of political orientations in the United States.
According to their analysis of American National Election Studies poll data from the last 40 years, the electorate is divided into five ideological categories: liberals, who make up 19 percent of voters; conservatives, 27 percent; libertarians, 22 percent; populists, 11 percent; and, in the lighter gray center, moderates, at 21 percent.
(More here.)
If you ask them, Americans will tell you that they want constructive compromise and a more conciliatory political regime, even though they are reluctant to reach agreement when it comes to the specific issues that they actually care about.
In “Why American Political Parties Can’t Get Beyond the Left-Right Divide,” three experts on voting behavior argue that proponents of a revival of a less divisive politics should keep their hopes down.
The core of the argument made at a conference last month at the University of Akron by the political scientists Edward Carmines of Indiana University, Michael Ensley of Kent State University and Michael Wagner of the University of Wisconsin lies in the graphic representation in Figure 1, which shows the distribution of political orientations in the United States.
According to their analysis of American National Election Studies poll data from the last 40 years, the electorate is divided into five ideological categories: liberals, who make up 19 percent of voters; conservatives, 27 percent; libertarians, 22 percent; populists, 11 percent; and, in the lighter gray center, moderates, at 21 percent.
(More here.)
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