Polarization and Issue Consistency Over Time |
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Authors: | Andrew Garner Harvey Palmer |
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Institution: | (1) University of Wyoming, A&S 146, Laramie, WY 82071, USA;(2) University at Buffalo, SUNY, 514 Park Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA |
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Abstract: | The polarization of the political and social environment over the past four decades has provided citizens with clearer cues
about how their core political predispositions (e.g., group interests, core values, and party identification) relate to their
issue opinions. A robust and ongoing scholarly debate has involved the different ways in which the more polarized environment
affects mass opinion. Using heteroskedastic regression, this paper examines the effect of the increasingly polarized environment
on the variability of citizens’ policy opinions. We find that citizens today base their policy preferences more closely upon
their core political predispositions than in the past. In addition, the predicted error variances also allow us to directly
compare two types of mass polarization—issue distance versus issue consistency—to determine the independent effects each has
on changes in the distribution of mass opinion. |
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