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Americans are increasingly polarized by a variety of metrics. The dimensions, extent, causes, and consequences of that polarization have been the subject of much debate. Yet despite the centrality of religion to early discussions, the analytical focus on America's divides has largely shifted toward partisan identity, political ideology, race, and class interests. I show that religion remains powerfully implicated in all dimensions of American polarization, and sociologists must once again make religion more central to their analyses. After outlining research on American polarization, focusing on the role of religion, I survey findings within the burgeoning literatures on cultural transformation processes, (White) Christian nationalism, complex religion, and Americans' attitudes toward science in order to underscore the centrality of ethno-religious identities, religious demography, and religious institutions for both shaping and exacerbating various forms of polarization. Lastly, I propose an agenda for elucidating religion's ongoing role in understanding polarization beyond public opinion research at the macro-, meso-, and micro-levels. Though polarization research has been dominated by political scientists, leveraging religion in our analyses—not merely as a sui generis variable, but as a site of complex social behavior—facilitates novel sociological contributions to these literatures via our relative attention to multiple levels of analysis, theoretical eclecticism, and methodological fluidity.

Cover -- Half Title -- Series Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Preface -- 1 The Philosophy of Polarization Phenomena -- 2 The Psychology of Group Polarization -- 3 The Epistemology of Group Polarization -- 4 Four Models of Group Polarization -- 5 The Reductive Virtue/Vice Model -- 6 The Collective Heuristic/Bias Model -- 7 The Reductive Heuristic/Bias Model -- 8 The Collective Virtue/Vice Model -- 9 Mitigating the Epistemic Pitfalls of Group Polarization -- Conclusion: Future Directions -- References -- Index.

I present a model in which a centrist electorate leads to partisan politics and vice versa. A centrist electorate benefits from an equilibrium in which only ideological politicians are elected in so far as ideological politicians are willing to give up more rents in return for a higher chance of being reelected than centrist politicians. However, in this .partisan equilibrium only centrist voters can commit to support ideological politicians in return for low levels of rent-seeking. Consequently, the more likely the centrist voters are to be decisive in the election, the lower are the rents that are consistent with equilibrium. If partisan voters are more likely to be decisive, rents in the partisan equilibrium are larger and the equilibrium might even cease to exist. However, there is an alternative equilibrium in which only centrist politicians run for o¢ ce. The model provides a possible explanation why wee see more partisan politicians being elected in the United States in recent years although the electorate seems not more partisan than before. One implication is that a reduction of rent seeking possibilities would have the additional bene.t of less volatile and less ideological policies.

This article examines the relationship between state budgetary delays and party polarization. Although others have evaluated the influence of divided government on a state's likelihood of passing a budget on time, the influence of party polarization has not been explored. Given the growing rate of party polarization in the American states, it is important to understand the implications that this trend has for the budgetary process. The first analysis in this article predicts if a budgetary delay will occur, and the second evaluates the factors that explain how long the stalemate continues when a delay occurs.

Using US data of media's coverage of politics and individual survey data, the authors document that in the states with a greater coverage of politics, citizens especially exposed to newspapers have more polarized preferences, partly coming from better political knowledge, and resulting in a higher political involvement measured as contributions to political parties and candidates.

It is widely accepted that polarization is occurring in America. However, the exact nature and extent of this polarization is constantly in question. Empirical research has returned results ranging from practical denial to full support to case specific. The examination of polarization in the mass public creates an image of the moderate voter who varies little from the center but is presented only with polarized choices. This project will review the evidence previously put forth on elite polarization and the trickle-down effect with the masses. It will also establish the difference between consistent moderates and inconsistent moderates, which builds off of the Pure and Leaning Independents, and the theoretical impact of these definitions on data collection. Finally, through an ideology skim of issues, it will seek to confirm the existence of bimodal Moderates as a major influencing force in today's politicized America. The data reveals a different story from the popular image: Moderates constitute more than half of the American electorate and defy the conventional identifiers of uninformed and disinterested.