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3 March 2006

Burden and Hillygus on Polarization

At this week’s American Politics Research Workshop, Prof. Barry Burden presented a paper co-authored with Prof. D. Sunshine Hillygus’, “The Devil You Know: Voter Learning, Polarization, and the Reelection of George W Bush�. The authors argue that voter learning about candidates occurs throughout a president’s term in office, and not just during the first term in office. As a result, low information voters become less uncertain about the incumbent president, which results in voters considering the incumbent a less “risky� choice. On the other hand, knowledgeable voters respond to this increased knowledge differently. High-information voters actually become more polarized in their evaluations of the president relative to his opponent. Paradoxically, this increased polarization appears to lead to be an important component to incumbent presidential victories.

Burden and Hillygus show that their basic pattern is consistent over the course of six modern presidencies, but focus particularly on the presidency of George W Bush. They argue that the events of September 11 focused the public’s attention on the president, and this increased learning about the president and his traits may have played a strong role in President Bush’s reelection. This learning manifested itself in two ways. First a time series composed of Gallup polls showed that the proportion of the population expressing “don’t know� responses to approval questions had a huge drop after the terror attacks. In addition, and contrary to his pledge that he would serve as a uniter and not a divider, President Bush also polarized the American public more than any other president in their survey. But according to Burden and Hillygus, Bush is not culpable for this polarization. Instead it appears to be a pattern the public experiences time and again with different presidents.

Beyond their primary theoretical argument, Burden and Hillygus address a large gap in the behavior literature. How voters learn about presidents and other politicians is an important issue. Yet, little in the literature addresses learning processes, and when learning is discussed it is rarely tied to the outcome of real political events. In short, this research agenda offers the promise of casting light on mass behavior in a new different way, and directly ties these findings to political outcomes.

Posted by Justin Grimmer at March 3, 2006 8:57 AM