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Cause and Effect in Political Polarization: A Dynamic Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Steven Callander

    (Stanford GSB)

  • Juan Carlos Carbajal

    (UNSW-Sydney)

Abstract

Political polarization is an important and enduring puzzle. Complicating attempts at explanation is that polarization is not a single thing. It is both a description of the current state of politics today and a dynamic path that has rippled across the political domain over multiple decades. In this paper we provide a simple model that is consistent with both the current state of polarization in the U.S. and the process that got it to where it is today. Our model provides an explanation for why polarization appears incrementally and why it was elites who polarized first and more dramatically whereas mass polarization came later and has been less pronounced. The building block for our model is voter behavior. We take an ostensibly unrelated finding about how voters form their preferences and incorporate it into a dynamic model of elections. On its own this change does not lead to polarization. Our core insight is that this change, when combined with the response of strategic candidates, creates a feedback loop that is able to replicate many features of the data. We explore the implications of the model for other aspects of politics and trace out what it predicts for the future course of polarization

Suggested Citation

  • Steven Callander & Juan Carlos Carbajal, 2020. "Cause and Effect in Political Polarization: A Dynamic Analysis," Working Papers 173, Peruvian Economic Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:apc:wpaper:173
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    2. Little, Andrew T. & Nunnari, Salvatore, 2025. "Does Partisanship or Arguing Activate Political Motivated Reasoning?," SocArXiv sxayc_v1, Center for Open Science.
    3. Amirarsalan Rajabi & Alexander V. Mantzaris & Kuldip Singh Atwal & Ivan Garibay, 2021. "Exploring the disparity of influence between users in the discussion of Brexit on Twitter," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 903-917, November.
    4. Lockwood, Ben & Le, Minh & Rockey, James, 2024. "Dynamic electoral competition with voter loss-aversion and imperfect recall," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 232(C).
    5. Gerald Carlino & Thorsten Drautzburg & Robert Inman & Nicholas Zarra, 2023. "Partisanship and Fiscal Policy in Economic Unions: Evidence from US States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 113(3), pages 701-737, March.
    6. Cano Macias, Ricardo & Ruiz Vera, Jorge Mauricio, 2024. "Dynamics of opinion polarization in a population," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 31-40.
    7. Kurt D. Casas, 2025. "Demagoguery and Power: A Discourse Analysis of Duterte’s War on Drugs in His Inaugural and Final Sonas," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 9(7), pages 153-162, July.
    8. Eugen Dimant & Michele Gelfand & Anna Hochleitner & Silvia Sonderegger, 2023. "Strategic Behavior with Tight, Loose and Polarized Norms," CESifo Working Paper Series 10233, CESifo.
    9. Alexandre Arnout, 2024. "Flip-flopping and Endogenous Turnout," AMSE Working Papers 2423, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.

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