Parties at War

Despite what we hear in the media, Americans have not become more polarized—they’re just better sorted. Continuing his research from the very popularCulture War?, Morris Fiorina shows in this new book that what has occurred in the United States is the sorting of partisan sub-groups within the larger population--especially within partisan elites in Congress and in state houses across the nation. Party wars seem to prevail on every front every day. But since political candidates are now more liberal (if Democratic) and more conservative (if Republican) than their respective constituencies are, perceptions can be deceiving. Voters confronted with extreme candidates choose the least disagreeable rather than embrace the polarized party line. By no means has the political center vanished—it has simply been absorbed into a dissatisfied public that often finds more agreement on issues like gay marriage, abortion, and gun control than warring parties on the Hill or in the White House might indicate. This book provides the proof that party wars need not continue to tear our country apart—if only we can sort things out.

Morris P. Fiorina is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and the Wendt Family Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. His work has appeared in theNew York Times and the Wall Street Journal, and he is the author of several books, includingDivided Government and The New American Democracy.

Samuel J. Abrams is a Research Fellow with the Hoover Institution, Professor of Politics and Social Sciences at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY, and a faculty fellow with NYU's Center for Advanced Social Science Research.