Ideological Structure and Consistency in the Age of Polarization
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6180230 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Caitlin E Jewitt (0000-0003-0917-4392, Virginia Tech, corresponding author), Paul Goren (0009-0009-7256-7579, University of Minnesota) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 44 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 81-105 |
| Publication date | 2016-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Politics Research (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1532-673X • E-ISSN: 1552-3373 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1532673x15574864 |
| OpenAlex | W2328883463 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 28 |
| References cited | 34 |
Decades of research establish that political elites hold more ideologically consistent and structured policy preferences than ordinary citizens. Since the late 1970s, American politics, at the elite level, has become increasingly polarized and changes in the news media have made it easier for citizens to find news catering to their ideological tastes. We capitalize on these developments to examine whether ideologically engaged citizens–those who hold strong ideological identities, who are politically informed, and who participate actively in public affairs–match elites in ideological consistency and structure during the age of polarization. We test this hypothesis by applying correlation and measurement modeling techniques to data from multiple National Election Study and Convention Delegate Study surveys. We find that (a) ideologically engaged masses hold more tightly organized opinions than the less engaged every year, but lagged elites by a wide margin in 1980; (b) convention delegates manifest impressive levels of consistency every year; (c) by 1992 engaged citizens had caught up to political elites; and (d) ideological consistency increased substantially over time in the mass public, but only among the most ideologically engaged
Convention · Delegate · Elite · Ideology · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Public opinion · Sociology · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Law · Media Influence and Politics · Social Media and Politics
How Ideology Fuels Affective Polarization
Cutting the Climate Agenda
When legislators responded to news media surveys
Boon or bane? Open society and polarisation
Ideological polarization during a pandemic
Change, Continuity and Partisan Sorting on Moral Issues
Morris Fiorina’s Foundational Contributions to the Study of Partisanship and Mass Polarization
How Educational Attainment Moderates the Recursive Relationship Between Policy Orientations and Partisanship
Influence of politicians’ ideology on their legislative activities
Elections and Representation in American Municipal Administration
Where are the values voters? Ideological constraint and stability among rural, suburban, and urban populations in the United States
One more constrained than the other
Mass issue attitudes, political sophistication and ideology
Beyond Electoral Fortunes
Degrees of Acceptance
How party polarization shapes the structuring of policy preferences in Europe
Dixie’s Drivers
Polarization, Demographic Change, and White Flight from the Democratic Party
Do Belief Systems Exhibit Dynamic Constraint
Attitudinal Consistency in Citizens’ Social Policy Preferences
Party Animals
What Do Citizens Want from Their Member of Congress
Carriers of the Creed
Hatred Takes An Ideologue
Information and Issue Constraints on Party Cues
Contemporary Views of Liberal Democracy and the 2016 Presidential Election
Nobody seems to be fully representing me
Does polarization affect even the inattentive? Assessing the relationship between political sophistication, policy orientations, and elite cues
The new Presidential elite
The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion
In Time of War
The Partisan Sort
Post-Broadcast Democracy
Ordinal Versions of Coefficients Alpha and Theta for Likert Rating Scales
The Relative Performance of Full Information Maximum Likelihood Estimation for Missing Data in Structural Equation Models
Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis
The robustness of test statistics to nonnormality and specification error in confirmatory factor analysis.
Structural Equations with Latent Variables
The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics
Ideology in America
The American Ethos
The Long-Term Dynamics of Partisanship and Issue Orientations
A New Partisan Voter
Ideology in the 1980 Election
Is Polarization a Myth
Ideological Thinking Among Mass Publics and Political Elites
The Nature of Political Ideology in the Contemporary Electorate
Party Polarization and Party Structuring of Policy Attitudes
Why Do Partisan Media Polarize Viewers
Uninformed Votes
A Hierarchical Model of Attitude Constraint
Belief Systems
Political Sophistication and Policy Reasoning
Ideological Constraint in the Mass Public
Measuring Political Knowledge
Activists and Conflict Extension in American Party Politics
The Strength of Issues
Consensus and Ideology in American Politics
The Understanding of Ideological Labels by Political Elites
Resurgent Mass Partisanship
| Unique citing works | 28 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,8 |
| Citation span | 2016 - 2026 (11) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 27 |