Chapter 12 Exercises: Partisanship, Polarization, and Sorting

Exercises are organized into three tiers: Foundational, Analytical, and Advanced.

Foundational Tier

1. Sorting vs. Polarization In your own words, explain the difference between partisan sorting and ideological polarization. Why is this distinction important for understanding contemporary American politics? Give a concrete hypothetical example that illustrates sorting without polarization.

2. Affective Polarization Defined Define affective polarization in 3-4 sentences. How does it differ from ideological polarization? According to this chapter, which type of polarization has grown more among ordinary American voters?

3. Negative Partisanship Explain the concept of negative partisanship. Why does negative partisanship complicate the assumption that self-described "independents" are persuadable moderates? Give an example of how negative partisanship might show up in a voter's behavior.

4. Nationalization of Elections List three forces that have driven the nationalization of American elections over the past thirty years. For each force, explain in 1-2 sentences how it has reduced the role of local factors in vote choice.

5. The Big Sort Explain Bill Bishop's "Big Sort" argument. What are the political consequences of geographic sorting for (a) electoral competition, (b) cross-partisan social contact, and (c) political representation?

6. Partisan Nonresponse Bias Describe the mechanism of partisan differential nonresponse in polling. How does this problem relate to the era of polarization? Why is it difficult to correct for this bias?

7. Historical Baseline Describe the American party system of the 1950s in terms of ideological heterogeneity. How did the 1964-1965 civil rights legislation begin a realignment that would eventually produce today's more ideologically sorted parties?

Analytical Tier

8. Affective Polarization Without Ideological Change It is theoretically possible for affective polarization to grow even if the actual distribution of policy opinions in the electorate doesn't change. Explain how this could happen using social identity theory as your explanatory framework. What would need to be true about partisan media, party messaging, and community sorting for affective polarization to grow without ideological polarization?

9. The Nationalization Index A researcher wants to measure the degree of electoral nationalization in a state over time. Describe how you would construct a "nationalization index" for a state — what data would you use, how would you compute it, and what would a high vs. low score indicate? Apply your framework conceptually to the Garza-Whitfield state, where the presidential-Senate correlation has risen from r = 0.78 in 2012 to r = 0.88 in 2020.

10. Elite Polarization vs. Mass Polarization The chapter distinguishes between elite polarization (elected officials, party activists, major donors) and mass polarization (ordinary voters). Using evidence from this chapter and Chapter 11, write a 400-500 word analysis of why elite polarization might outpace mass polarization. What mechanisms allow elected officials to be more extreme than their median constituent without losing their seats?

11. The Polling Paradox of Polarization Polarization creates several simultaneous challenges for pollsters: partisan nonresponse bias, social desirability effects, and herding. These challenges can work in opposite directions (e.g., nonresponse might bias polls toward the party whose voters are more motivated to answer, while herding reduces inter-poll variance). Write a 400-word analysis of how a polling firm might think about balancing these competing concerns when deciding whether and how to weight its data for partisan composition.

12. Garza-Whitfield: Strategy Under Polarization Both Garza and Whitfield face strategic constraints created by polarization. For each candidate, write a 250-300 word strategic memo explaining: - How polarization constrains their strategic options - How polarization creates opportunities for their campaign - The single greatest strategic risk created by the polarized environment

13. The Geographic Sorting Visual You are given data showing the presidential vote share (D%) and Senate vote share (D%) for each of the Garza-Whitfield state's counties in three elections: 2012, 2016, 2020. If you plotted presidential vs. Senate vote share as a scatterplot for each year, and the slope of the regression line increased over time while the R-squared also increased, what would this pattern tell you about nationalization? What would it tell you about the continuing relevance of local factors?

Advanced Tier

14. Testing the Affective Polarization Measure Affective polarization is typically measured using party feeling thermometers (0-100 scale) in surveys like the ANES. A critic argues that this measure is flawed: "People are just answering a feeling thermometer question strategically — they rate the out-party low not because they actually feel hostile but because they want to signal partisan loyalty to an interviewer." Design a research strategy using multiple measurement approaches to test whether feeling thermometer-based affective polarization measures are capturing genuine emotional hostility or social desirability artifacts. What alternative measures would you use, and how would you combine them?

15. The Social Desirability Problem in a Polarized State You are a pollster conducting pre-election surveys in the Garza-Whitfield race. Your firm has noticed that in past cycles, your final polls in this state have slightly overestimated Garza's support relative to actual outcomes. You suspect social desirability bias — some Whitfield supporters may not be comfortable disclosing their preference to interviewers. Design a methodological approach to test whether social desirability bias is occurring and estimate its magnitude. Your design should include at least two different measurement techniques and explain how comparing them would reveal bias.

16. Sorting, Polarization, and Democratic Theory Write a 700-900 word essay on the following question: Is partisan sorting, as opposed to affective polarization, a problem for democratic governance? Your essay should (a) distinguish sorting from affective polarization clearly, (b) evaluate the claim that sorting is actually normatively desirable (because it makes the parties' positions clearer and their brand more coherent), (c) evaluate the claim that sorting combined with affective polarization creates pathologies that undermine democratic governance, and (d) defend a conclusion about whether the sorting-polarization nexus is net harmful or not, with appropriate nuance.

17. Measuring the Persuadable Electorate The chapter suggests that the genuine persuadable electorate is smaller than the number of self-described independents implies. Design a research methodology to estimate the size of the genuinely persuadable electorate in a competitive Senate state like the Garza-Whitfield state. Your methodology should (a) distinguish true independents from negative partisans, (b) identify voters with genuine cross-pressures, (c) estimate the ceiling of the persuadable universe, and (d) assess the practical limitations of your approach.

18. Nationalization and Down-Ballot Analysis Using publicly available data from any two election cycles (primary sources: MIT Election Data + Science Lab, Ballotpedia, NCSL), compare the correlation between presidential vote share and the vote share of a U.S. Senate or House candidate in the same constituency over time. Write a 400-500 word analysis of what you find. Has nationalization been uniform across states, or do some states show less nationalization? What factors might explain variation in nationalization rates across states?