Polarized America : the dance of ideology and unequal riches /
"Using NOMINATE (a quantitative procedure that, like interest group ratings, scores politicians on the basis of their roll call voting records) to measure polarization in Congress and public opinion, census data and Federal Election Commission finance records to measure polarization among the p...
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| Other Authors: | , |
| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Cambridge, Mass. :
MIT Press,
[2006]
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| Series: | Walras-Pareto lectures (Unnumbered)
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| Subjects: |
| Summary: | "Using NOMINATE (a quantitative procedure that, like interest group ratings, scores politicians on the basis of their roll call voting records) to measure polarization in Congress and public opinion, census data and Federal Election Commission finance records to measure polarization among the public, the authors find that polarization and income inequality fell in tandem from 1913 to 1957 and rose together dramatically from 1977 on; they trace a parallel rise in immigration beginning in the 1970s. They show that Republicans have moved right, away from redistributive policies that would reduce income inequality. Immigration, meanwhile, has facilitated the move to the right: non-citizens, a larger share of the population and disproportionately poor, cannot vote; thus there is less political pressure from the bottom for redistribution than there is from the top against it. In "the choreography of American politics" inequality feeds directly into political polarization, and polarization in turn creates policies that further increase inequality."--BOOK JACKET. |
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| Physical Description: | xii, 240 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages [219]-228) and index. |
| ISBN: | 0262134640 (alk. paper) 9780262134644 (alk. paper) |