These articles are intended to bring together some of the major course themes and help us think forward to the future of American democracy.
The Fiorina excerpt is from his new book Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America. Fiorina is trying to explain "polarization," the fact that the two parties are now much further apart ideologically than they used to be. Some believe that the parties are more polarized today because the public is more polarized, but Fiorina rejects that explanation. He shows that Americans today are most likely to find themselves in the political center and troubled by the more extreme positions of the parties. So why don't the parties reflect the voters? (Remember that theory suggests the two parties should move to the center to pick up the most votes; instead they seem to be doing the opposite.) Fiorina's explanation is that a new kind of person is entering political life today as compared to the past; politics today is dominated by purists rather than professionals. Purists are attracted to politics because of their intense views on political issues. And changes in the political system, some of which we have reviewed (presidential primaries, the rise of adversarial legalism, and the explosion of advocacy groups noted by Skocpol) give these purists plenty of ways to pursue their goals. So for the intensely interested minority, American politics today is highly participatory, but for the masses it is ever more complex, befuddling and frustrating.
James Q. Wilson agrees with Fiorina that elites have become more polarized, but thinks polarization has begun to affect everyday voters as well. Wilson attributes polarization to changes in Congress, in the news media and in interest groups.
For Wilson Carey McWilliams, the polarization of the elites has made politics for ordinary voters ever more confusing and troubling. His essay is a brilliant, wide-ranging overview of contemporary American politics that almost uncannily sums up what we've read and talked about in this course. There are echoes of many previous readings--Brutus on the problems in the Framers' design of the Constitution, Lippman on the "phantom public," Jacobs on "crafted talk," Patterson on media schemas, several of the articles on parties, and of course, Tocqueville. Do you agree with McWilliam's analysis? If so, what can be done to improve American politics? (Will the two tiers come together, or diverge still further in your lifetime?)
Fiorina, “Culture War”
1. What is a professional? What is a purist?
2. What factors contributed to the fall of the professional? (See also the Brady article.) The rise of the purists?
3. How did American democracy become more participatory starting in the 1960s? (In what ways are these changes potentially troubling from a democratic theory perspective?)
Wilson, “How Divided Are We?”
1. How does Wilson define "polarization"? In what sense is it a return to an older (pre-Civil War) style of politics?
2. How does Wilson explain growing polarization in Congress?
3. How do changes in the news media and in interest groups contribute to polarization according to Wilson?
4. Wilson, unlike Fiorina, claims polarization has spread beyond elites to "rank and file voters"--but not all of them. Which group of voters has become most polarized according to Wilson?
5. What's wrong with polarization according to Wilson?
McWilliams, “Two-Tier Politics”
1. What are the two tiers in American politics? What exactly separates them?
2. McWilliams writes that "the foxes may be at large, but the lions are pretty much in chains." (This in my opinion is about the best one-sentence explanation of American politics since at least the Reagan Administration.) What exactly does he mean? Who are the foxes, and what are their techniques? Who are the lions? (Hint: Ted Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Tom DeLay are clearly lions; George W. Bush and Bill Clinton are arguably foxes.)
3. McWilliams writes of the "lush charms of covert politics." How does his argument relate to Jacobs' concept of "crafted talk"? (How might it relate to the Iraq war?)
4. In what sense could one conclude that Centinel warned about "two-tiered politics" two hundred years before McWilliams?
5. Why is it harmful, according to McWilliams, for the mass media to "encroach more and more on the space for deliberation and discretion allowed to representatives"? (How is McWilliam's analysis here like Patterson's in “Schemas”?)
6. McWilliams says term limits are probably the least important part of the Antifederalist program for government. What is the most important according to McWilliams?
7. What remedy does McWilliams think most appropriate for trying to bring the "two tiers" closer together? What changes have made parties less effective in this role? What reforms does McWilliams suggest to make them more effective?