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20 September 2005

PPBW: Ansolabehere

The first PPBW session is this Friday with Ansolabehere, Rodden, and Snyder's paper, "Purple America." (Note that the room has changed to CGIS N354.) From the paper:

In this paper we challenge the culture war argument. As we read the works in this vein there are three key assumptions. First, voters are divided or polarized over issues, especially moral issues. There are few moderates on abortion, gay marriage, and similar public questions, and the divisions on these questions map into important demographic categories, especially religion and type of community. Second, moral issues have more salience or weight in the minds of voters than economic issues. Third, the division maps into geography. Red state voters are more morally conservative and put more weight on moral issues.

Ansolabehere et al. reject 2 of these 3 assumptions. More after the workshop.

Posted by Barry Burden at September 20, 2005 7:59 PM