Public Opinion Polarization Research Articles

Political Depolarization in German Public Opinion, 1980-2010

Little is known about political polarization in German public opinion. We offer an issue-based perspective and explore trends of opinion polarization in Germany. Public opinion polarization is conceptualized and measured as alignment of attitudes. Data from the German General Social Survey (1980 to 2010) comprise attitudes towards manifold issues which are classified into several dimensions. We estimate multilevel models which reveal general and issue- as well as dimension specific levels and trends in attitude alignment for both the whole German population and subgroups. We find that public opinion polarization has decreased over the last three decades in Germany. In particular, the higher educated and more politically interested people became less polarized over time. However, polarization seems to have increased in attitudes regarding gender issues. Our findings provide interesting contrasts to existing research on the American public.

Partisans without Constraint: Political Polarization and Trends in American Public Opinion

Public opinion polarization is here conceived as a process of alignment along multiple lines of potential disagreement and measured as growing constraint in individuals' preferences. Using NES data from 1972 to 2004, the authors model trends in issue partisanship-the correlation of issue attitudes with party identification-and issue alignment-the correlation between pairs of issues-and find a substantive increase in issue partisanship, but little evidence of issue alignment. The findings suggest that opinion changes correspond more to a resorting of party labels among voters than to greater constraint on issue attitudes: since parties are more polarized, they are now better at sorting individuals along ideological lines. Levels of constraint vary across population subgroups: strong partisans and wealthier and politically sophisticated voters have grown more coherent in their beliefs. The authors discuss the consequences of partisan realignment and group sorting on the political process and potential deviations from the classic pluralistic account of American politics.