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City limits to partisan polarization in the American public

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2021

Amalie Jensen ,
William Marble Open the ORCID record for William Marble [Opens in a new window] ,
Kenneth Scheve Open the ORCID record for Kenneth Scheve [Opens in a new window]  and
Matthew J. Slaughter
Amalie Jensen
Affiliation:
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA
William Marble
Affiliation:
Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Kenneth Scheve*
Affiliation:
Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA
Matthew J. Slaughter
Affiliation:
Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA
*
*Corresponding author. Email: kenneth.scheve@yale.edu
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Abstract

How pervasive is partisan sorting and polarization over public policies in the American public? We examine whether the barriers of partisan sorting and polarization seen in national politics extend to important local policies that shape economic development. To describe the extent of partisan sorting and polarization over local development policies, we employ conjoint survey experiments in representative surveys of eight US metropolitan areas and a hierarchical modeling strategy for studying heterogeneity across respondents. We find that strong partisans are sorted by party in some of their policy opinions, but rarely polarized. The same voters who disagree about national issues have similar preferences about local development issues suggesting a greater scope for bipartisan problem solving at the local level.

Keywords

Partisan PolarizationLocal PoliticsMulti-level and Hierarchical Models

Information

Type
Original Article
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , April 2021 , pp. 223 - 241
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the European Political Science Association

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https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/JYKRGY
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