Depolarization, Repolarization and Redistributive Ideological Change in Britain, 1983-2016

Cohen, Gidon; Cohen, Sarah

Abstract

In this article we examine party sorting, elite cue and ideological polarization ac- counts of polarization dynamics. We test their diering expectations about trends in redistributive ideological polarization and partisan polarization in the British case using repeated cross-section and panel data. We reject party sorting accounts, which require ideology to be stable and changes in party support to drive partisan polarization, be- cause we nd that ideology trends with elite polarization and that ideological change causes partisan polarization. We reject elite cue accounts, which argue that it is mainly the ideology of partisans that follows elite polarization, because we nd virtually identi- cal trends for initially ideological similar non-partisans too. We thus nd support for an ideological polarization account where changes in elite polarization are associated with general changes in citizen redistributive ideology.

Citation

Cohen, G., & Cohen, S. (2021). Depolarization, Repolarization and Redistributive Ideological Change in Britain, 1983-2016. British Journal of Political Science, 51(3), 1181-1202. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0007123419000486

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 22, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Dec 12, 2019
• Publication Date: 2021-07
• Deposit Date: Jul 25, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 6, 2019
• Journal: British Journal of Political Science
• Print ISSN: 0007-1234
• Electronic ISSN: 1469-2112
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 51
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 1181-1202
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/s0007123419000486
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1291697