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Measuring Public Preferential Polarization

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  • Ugur Ozdemir

    (Wallis Institute of Political Economy - University of Rochester [USA])

  • Ali Ihsan Ozkes

    (X-DEP-ECO - Département d'Économie de l'École Polytechnique - X - École polytechnique)

Abstract

We adapt an axiomatically derived measure of polarization due to Esteban and Ray (1994) to measure polarization of political preferences. Previous work used different measures such as variance, kurtosis, Cronbach's alpha, median distance to median and the mean distance between groups. Yet, none of these measures are theoretically connected to a notion of polarization. Although the initiation of the current one is in the lieu of income inequality measurement, it is conceptually suitable for preferential polarization as well. This paper offers a methodology for that purpose. The second contribution of the paper is that we use the Aldrich-McKelvey Scaling to correct for differential-item functioning in estimating ideal points of the individuals. We use the American National Election Survey Data for years between 1984-2008 to implement the theory offered in the paper. Our findings suggest that there is not a statistically significant increasing trend in polarization in this time period in many issue dimensions but there is an upward trend in the latent ideology dimension which is significant during the 1990s.

Suggested Citation

  • Ugur Ozdemir & Ali Ihsan Ozkes, 2014. "Measuring Public Preferential Polarization," Working Papers hal-00954497, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-00954497
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-00954497
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Norman Schofield & Christopher Claassen & Ugur Ozdemir & Alexei Zakharov, 2011. "Estimating the effects of activists in two-party and multi-party systems: comparing the United States and Israel," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 36(3), pages 483-518, April.
    2. Esteban, Joan & Ray, Debraj, 1994. "On the Measurement of Polarization," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(4), pages 819-851, July.
    3. Alberto Alesina & Reza Baqir & William Easterly, 1999. "Public Goods and Ethnic Divisions," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(4), pages 1243-1284.
    4. Hetherington, Marc J., 2009. "Review Article: Putting Polarization in Perspective," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(2), pages 413-448, April.
    5. Krehbiel, Keith & Peskowitz, Zachary, 2012. "Legislative Organization and Ideal-Point Bias," Research Papers 2124, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    6. Dennis J. Downey & Matt L. Huffman, 2001. "Attitudinal Polarization and Trimodal Distributions: Measurement Problems and Theoretical Implications," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 82(3), pages 494-505, September.
    7. Aldrich, John H. & McKelvey, Richard D., 1977. "A Method of Scaling with Applications to the 1968 and 1972 Presidential Elections," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 71(1), pages 111-130, March.
    8. John H. Evans, 2003. "Have Americans' Attitudes Become More Polarized?—An Update," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 84(1), pages 71-90, March.
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    Cited by:

    1. Benjamin Ogden, 2017. "The Imperfect Beliefs Voting Model," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2017-20, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    2. Huremović, Kenan & Ozkes, Ali I., 2022. "Polarization in networks: Identification–alienation framework," Journal of Mathematical Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).

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