Polarization and the Judiciary
In: Annual Review of Political Science, May 2019 Forthcoming
In: Annual Review of Political Science, May 2019 Forthcoming
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In: The world today, Band 53, Heft 3, S. 70-72
ISSN: 0043-9134
THE NEW BRITISH GOVERNMENT THAT WILL TAKE OFFICE IN 1997 FACES THE DIFFICULT TASK OF RE-ESTABLISHING THE CREDIBILITY OF THE PEACE PROCESS IN NORTHERN IRELAND. IT MUST DO SO AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF INCREASED POLARIZATION BETWEEN THE PROTESTANT COMMUNITY, WHICH LARGELY FAVORS CONTINUED UNION WITH BRITAIN, AND THE CATHOLIC COMMUNITY, WHICH GENERALLY WANTS CLOSER LINKS WITH THE IRISH REPUBLIC. INTERNATIONAL OBSERVERS ARE WAITING TO SEE IF A COMBINATION OF THE NEW WESTMINSTER GOVERNMENT, THE SECOND CLINTON ADMINISTRATION, AND THE IRISH GOVERNMENT FORMED AFTER THE REPUBLIC'S 1997 GENERAL ELECTIONS CAN PERSUADE THE PARTIES IN NORTHERN IRELAND TO REACH A POLITICAL SETTLEMENT THAT WILL ENSURE LASTING PEACE.
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In: Northwestern Public Law Research Paper No. 21-05
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In: Party politics: an international journal for the study of political parties and political organizations, Band 23, Heft 6, S. 657-665
ISSN: 1460-3683
The polarization of political parties in the United States is a well-documented phenomenon. This paper considers polarization of the judicial branch and relates it to the evolution of the parties. In this paper we define polarization specifically as movement from a modal distribution (of votes, attitudes, or decisions) to a bimodal distribution along a liberal-conservative spectrum over time. Using data compiled from 90,000 United States District Court decisions published in the Federal Supplement between 1934 and 2008, we find that the judiciary began to polarize in the 1960s and has remained polarized. We consider a number of competing explanations for the polarization of the district courts, including a top-down view that emphasizes presidential power and a bottom-up view that focuses on the sorting of elites that form the pool of potential judges.
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"Extreme polarization in American politics - and especially in the U.S. Congress - is perhaps the most confounding political phenomenon of our time. This book binds together polarization in Congress and polarization in the electorate within an ever-expanding feedback loop. This loop is powered by the discipline exerted by the respective political parties on their Congressional members and district candidates and maintained by the voters in each Congressional district who must choose between the alternatives offered. These alternatives are just as extreme in competitive as in lop-sided districts. Tight national party discipline produces party delegations in Congress that are each ideologically narrowly distributed but widely separated from one another. As district constituencies become more polarized and are egged on by activists, parties are further motivated to move past a threshold and appeal to their respective bases rather than to voters in the political center. America has indeed acquired parties with clear platforms - once thought to be a desirable goal, but these parties are now feuding camps. What resolution might there be? Just as the progressive movement slowly replaced the Gilded Age, might a new reform effort replace the current squabble? Or could an asymmetry develop in the partisan constraints that would lead to ascendancy of the center, or might a new and over-riding issue generate a cross-cutting dimension, opening the door to a new politics? Only the future will tell"--
Failures of government policies often provoke opposite reactions from citizens; some call for a reversal of the policy, whereas others favor its continuation in stronger form. We offer an explanation of such polarization, based on a natural bimodality of preferences in political and economic contexts and consistent with Bayesian rationality.
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In: Studies in conflict & terrorism, Band 37, Heft 6, S. 492-522
ISSN: 1057-610X
World Affairs Online
In: Sonderforschungsbereich 504, Rationalitätskonzepte, Entscheidungsverhalten und ökonomische Modellierung 07-66
In: Conflict management and peace science: the official journal of the Peace Science Society (International), Band 39, Heft 4, S. 375-393
ISSN: 1549-9219
This extension of Christian Davenport's virtual Presidential address to the Peace Science Society International attempts to: (1) identify as well as confront some of the issues that divide the Peace Science community and (2) provide some ideas/actions about what can be done to fix them. The article is as much a reflection on where we have been as it is a call to where we must go.