Theories Of Political Polarization

Political polarization is defined as the growing separation gap between Democrats (liberals) and Republican (conservatives) based on political ideology or political affiliation. Howard Rosenthal, Nolan McCarty, and Keith Poole were three political scientist that noticed the significant polarization amongst the American electorate. Their research would later be published in a book “Polarized America” and become the foundation for political scientist to better understand the polarized electorate. The theory presented in “Polarized America” was that the political parties in America ditched the centrist electorate in favor of their political fanatic fanbase. This revolutionary theory simply stated that the American electorate are polarized therefore,