How to Fix Our Polarized Politics? Strengthen Political Parties
Files
Description
The dramatic polarization of our political parties is here to stay. It is primarily a product of long-term historical and structural forces that were set into motion in the 1960s when African-Americans (and many previously excluded poor whites) began the process of becoming full political participants. That process began with the 1965 Voting Rights Act, but took decades to culminate, as it more or less now has. Thus, specific efforts to diminish polarization by one, or several, discrete changes in our electoral institutions (the design of election districts, for example) are not likely to make a significant dent (see Chapters 1 and 10). If we therefore accept polarization as a fact—as we should—our attention instead might better be centered on how to manage polarization’s consequences to promote more effective governance. My suggestion is that, if we are looking for solutions, we should re-define the problem of effective governance in our era as one of political fragmentation rather than one of political polarization. By fragmentation, I mean the external diffusion of political power away from the political parties as a whole and the internal diffusion of power away from the party leadership to individual party members and officeholders. It is political fragmentation that makes it that much more difficult, in a political world that rests on polarized parties, for party leaders nonetheless to engage in the kinds of negotiations, compromises, and pragmatic deal-making that enable government to function effectively, at least in areas of broad consensus that government must act in some way (budgets, debt-ceiling increases). And because of political fragmentation, party leaders in all our political institutions have less capacity to play this kind of leadership role than in many previous eras. When political fragmentation that makes it that much harder for party leaders to command their parties is added to highly polarized parties, the mix is highly toxic to the capacity of our political institutions to function effectively.
Source Publication
Political Polarization in American Politics
Source Editors/Authors
Daniel J. Hopkins, John Sides
Publication Date
2015
Recommended Citation
Pildes, Richard H., "How to Fix Our Polarized Politics? Strengthen Political Parties" (2015). Faculty Chapters. 1950.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/1950
