Department of Sociology, University of Chicago, USA.
Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University, USA.
Soc Sci Res. 2021 Feb;94:102498. doi: 10.1016/j.ssresearch.2020.102498. Epub 2020 Nov 27.
Prior studies of American polarization suggest that the public gradually sorted themselves into partisan camps in the late 20th century while remaining largely non-ideological. Drawing on more recent data, we reassess these trends and discover a striking increase in the ideological organization of American public opinion in the beginning of the 21st century. Using a broad set of issues from the American National Election Studies, we identify rapid growth in the correlations between political attitudes from 2004 to 2016. This emergence of issue alignment is most pronounced within the economic and civil rights domains, challenging the notion that current "culture wars" are grounded in moral issues. While elite subpopulations show the greatest gains, we find that economic issues become more highly correlated across the electorate. We also find accelerated growth in the association between partisanship and issue attitudes during this period. These findings paint a new picture of the American electorate as not only highly partisan but increasingly ideological.
先前关于美国极化的研究表明，公众在 20 世纪后期逐渐分为党派阵营，而在很大程度上保持非意识形态化。利用最近的数据，我们重新评估了这些趋势，并发现 21 世纪初美国公众舆论的意识形态组织发生了惊人的变化。我们使用美国全国选举研究中的一系列广泛问题，发现从 2004 年到 2016 年，政治态度之间的相关性迅速增加。这种问题一致性的出现，在经济和公民权利领域最为明显，挑战了当前“文化战争”基于道德问题的观点。虽然精英亚群体的收益最大，但我们发现经济问题在整个选民群体中的相关性越来越高。我们还发现，在此期间，党派关系和问题态度之间的关联也在加速增长。这些发现描绘了一幅新的美国选民图景，他们不仅高度党派化，而且越来越意识形态化。
