Presidents, Polarization, and Divided Government

Abstract

For several decades American political system has been polarizing along partisan, ideological, and issue lines at both mass and elite levels. One implication of polarization is disappearance of political middle: Moderates have almost completely vanished in Congress, for example (Fleisher and Bond 2004), and political activists stratum, that is, party activists, candidates for office, and office holders, consist almost entirely of consistent liberals in Democratic Party and consistent conservatives in Republican-Party. By historical and American standards, polarization has given rise to policy extremism, in sense of vanishing moderates. (1) This article investigates implications of partisan polarization and extremism of past two decades on American presidency. Although presidency is a key political institution, and often at center of important political changes and developments, rarely has literature on polarization considered presidency. As Layman, Carsey, and Horowitz (2006) state, the work on growing polarization between parties in government has focused largely on (87). (2) The literature on presidential-congressional relations and polarization rarely goes beyond general point that polarization makes a difficult relationship even more problematic for presidents (Andres 2005; Binder 2003; Edwards and Barrett 2000; Fleisher and Bond 2000a, b; Pomper 2003; Sinclair 1997, 2000, 2002; Theriault 2008; but see Beckmann and Kumar 2010). For instance, almost no attention has been paid to effects of polarization on presidential policy choice and implications of such choice on presidential success with Congress. (3) Cameron (2002) offers one of few extended discussions of implications of polarization on presidency, yet Cameron's essay aims mainly to set an agenda for research. As Cameron argues, polarization touches more than executive-legislative relations but also deeply affects presidential relations with media, judiciary, bureaucracy, and organization of White House staff. But, [p]residential scholars are just beginning to grasp these changes. (Cameron 2002, 647). To date, few have picked up on research directions set out by Cameron. (4) This article looks at implications of polarization on presidential policy choice. The polarization literature argues that widening gap between parties should lead to policy extremism as opposed to moderation. Has presidency, like Congress, also become more extreme, that is, decidedly liberal or conservative, as polarization has increased? I test two competing explanations for extremism in presidential policy, party activist theory and congressional context theory. The first theory argues that reforms in election processes, in particular campaign finance and nominations, increased power of party activists in party processes. Consequently, liberals captured Democratic Party and conservatives Republican. Presidents, as agents of their party, selected by these newly powerful elements in their party, moved to policy extremes in post-reform era. In contrast, congressional context theory maintains that policy considerations in part motivate presidents: Presidents care about implemented policy for a variety of reasons detailed below. Two aspects of congressional context affect presidential policy choice, whether their party controls Congress and degree of party polarization. Under united government, presidents select policies close to their party center. Under divided government, presidents will moderate their policy positions, being forced to work with opposition. But president's ability and/or willingness to work with opposition during divided government ebbs as polarization between parties widens. The analysis presented below shows support for congressional context theory but little for party activist one. …