Suchergebnisse

Abstract
This study analyzes the link between egalitarian ideals and the rise in party polarization in Congress. To demonstrate how philosophical differences over conceptions of fairness, equality, and justice help explain the recent growth in partisanship over the past few decades, I argue one overlooked explanatory factor which assists in capturing this ideological rift is noncontributory welfare spending. Recovering annual ideal point estimates between 1947 and 2018 that are comparable with annual federal spending, I use multivariate time series models and find convincing evidence which suggests welfare outlays have a strong short- and long-run effect on polarization. Moreover, analysis of the roll call record also shows when ideal point estimates are recovered by specific policy area, lawmakers exhibit higher levels of ideological separation on welfare compared to, among others, policies such as defense and transportation. Robustness checks confirm these findings also hold even when controlling for income inequality.

Scientists cannot take a neutral position regarding the way progress evolves. The environment, social justice and international order are the key factors for constructing peace.

In spite of growing concerns about political extremism, no adequate measure exists to empirically test the character of political attitudes. The purpose of this study was to develop a measurement of political attitude extremism and, using this measure, assess the communication phenomena that contribute to political extremism. To this end, two surveys were distributed to a total of 504 participants (316 for Study 1 and 188 for Study 2). Study 1 assessed the properties of political attitude extremism. The second study used the measure developed in Study 1 to determine the extent to which media habits, homogeneity of social networks, partisan polarization, political information efficacy, political talk, and moral certainty contribute to political attitude extremism. Study 1 found that liberal attitude extremism and conservative attitude extremism are not opposite ends of the same spectrum but rather are distinct variables with unique measurement properties. Furthermore, conservative attitude extremism must be subdivided into fiscal conservative extremism and social conservative extremism, while liberalism did not require such a division. Study 2 found that these three extremism variables (liberal attitude extremism, social conservative attitude extremism, fiscal conservative attitude extremism) behave differently relative to the communication phenomenon examined. Specifically, ideological media use and political talk significantly predicted liberal attitude extremism, homogeneity of social network and partisan polarization significantly predicted social conservative attitude extremism, and partisan polarization and political information efficacy significantly predicted fiscal conservative attitude extremism. These findings demonstrate that scholarship must consider attitude extremism as multifaceted and must adjust theory accordingly. The new measurement tools provided by this study represent a significant advancement in the empirical study of political extremism.