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A new theory about political polarization

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Re: A new theory about political polarization

#31

Post by Der_Einzige »

watwut wrote: post #29
Der_Einzige wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love how real horshoe theory actually is because no one actually thinks it's legitimate but it really did properly describe politics until 1945... The Nazis and communists had a lot in common in 1930's Nazi Germany. They even made jokes about how often people switched parties... "In some cities, the numeral strength of party-switching beefsteak Nazis was estimated to be large. Rudolf Diels (the head of the Gestapo…

You mean like, right after nazi took power and moved to violently suppress all opposition? Yep, many many people joined at that particular opportune moment and it has zero to do with ideological closeness. Which did angered hard liners and true believers. Through I doubt the 70% number. (And yes communist were violent too, which would made them suitable for SA. They were not that ideologically close nor they shared d…

It's because prior to the Rohm Purge ( the correct name for the "night of the long knives"), the SA and parts of the Nazi Party ran by Ernest Rohm took the "Socialism" part of the 'National Socialist" name seriously. This is what led him to be purged.

The Nazis and their corporate backers (IG Faben, Messerschmidt, etc) did NOT like the idea of socialists being in power and gave Hitler an ultimatum which lead to the "Socialist" part of the platform being de-facto abandoned by 1934.

Re: A new theory about political polarization

#32

Post by commandlinefan »

rayiner wrote: post #19

> It ultimately ends in total polarization," illustrates co-author David Garcia (CSH and MedUni Vienna). Not only do people categorically favor or oppose single issues like abortion, same-sex marriage and nuclear energy. "If they are pro-choice, they are at the same time highly likely to be for gay marriage, against the use of nuclear energy, for the legalization of marijuana, and so on," says Garcia. The possible va…

> we think of all these things as related ideologically, they aren’t necessarily.

I have to fight this tendency in myself: I'm as anti-liberal as they come, but I do happen to agree with a handful of "liberal" positions such as abortion, drug legalization and immigration. But from time to time I catch myself disagreeing with the messenger so much I almost forget I actually agree with the message.

Re: A new theory about political polarization

#33

Post by andrewla »

> The ever-deepening rift between the political left- and right-wing has long been puzzling theorists in political science and opinion dynamics

I feel like people who make this claims are in one of two camps. One is the camp that just wants to ignore that the 60s or 70s even happened, to refuse to acknowledge that the polarization we see now is extremely mild in comparison.

The other camp believes that we can measure the polarization using some insane metrics that purport to indicate how polarized society is, but really just measure the opinion of the people collecting the metrics through increasingly inane measures, like literal telephone polling that attempts to extrapolate from "people who use landlines routinely and either are willing to answer unknown caller calls or don't have caller id" to "all people".

The latter camp is extremely insidious and I implore you to remember the last time someone used metrics to prove something clearly false and assume that everyone is doing the same thing, just Gell-Mann amnesia is preventing you from seeing it.

Re: A new theory about political polarization

#34

Post by ChainOfFools »

tehjoker wrote: post #17

This is the kind of stuff when you get when you don't know anything about historical materialism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism Historical materialism is the idea that politics comes from changes in the material conditions of a population. When people need something and aren't getting it, then they meet others in the same situation and compare notes, then you get a political formation. The Unit…

Isn't this just Marxism with all the Marxist theory about class struggle rephrased into plain conflict theory language and de-jargonified?

Re: A new theory about political polarization

#36

Post by throwaway6274 »

commandlinefan wrote: post #32
rayiner wrote: post #19

> It ultimately ends in total polarization," illustrates co-author David Garcia (CSH and MedUni Vienna). Not only do people categorically favor or oppose single issues like abortion, same-sex marriage and nuclear energy. "If they are pro-choice, they are at the same time highly likely to be for gay marriage, against the use of nuclear energy, for the legalization of marijuana, and so on," says Garcia. The possible va…

> we think of all these things as related ideologically, they aren’t necessarily. I have to fight this tendency in myself: I'm as anti-liberal as they come, but I do happen to agree with a handful of "liberal" positions such as abortion, drug legalization and immigration. But from time to time I catch myself disagreeing with the messenger so much I almost forget I actually agree with the message.

How strange, as I’m the opposite. I’m about as anti-conservative as they come: UBI, legalize almost everything, universal healthcare and insurance, but I’m extremely against abortion.

Re: A new theory about political polarization

#37

Post by nordsieck »

tusharchoudhary wrote: post #21

Political science seems to be going through a phase of questioning the rationality of voters. The two major theories of public choice -- Median Voter theory[1] (political parties take positions that appeal to the median voter) and Investment theory of Party Competition[2] (parties take positions most beneficial to their donors), both assume emotions (irrationality) of voters to be small. In the current political clim…

> The two major theories of public choice -- Median Voter theory[1] (political parties take positions that appeal to the median voter) and Investment theory of Party Competition[2] (parties take positions most beneficial to their donors), both assume emotions (irrationality) of voters to be small. In the current political climate -- while it seems that the explanatory power of emotions seems to have gone up, it isn't clear why.

I read an interesting political science piece[1] about the fall of professional (i.e. corrupt) politicians and the rise of amateur (i.e. ideological) politicians.

The claim is largely that voters started to care more about politicians implementing their favorite policies than being the recipient of trickle-down graft. They started choosing zealots who (at least seem to) have uncompromising stances on issues which won't change later in their term for some reason. Needless to say, these sorts of politicians don't tend to be the moderate, nuanced type.

___

1. I wish I could find it, but it's lost in the mists of the internet.

Re: A new theory about political polarization

#39

Post by jjk166 »

happytoexplain wrote: post #13
jjk166 wrote: post #6

People are polarized because they don't like being not polarized isn't really a theory, it's a tautology.

That's a stretch. Conversationally, the implication of your sentence has real meaning - it's not redundant, despite sounding verbally repetitive.

Masses attract because they are attracted to eachother is not a theory of gravity, it's a restatement of the givens. People are polarized because they polarize is likewise a restatement of the givens. That people don't like being non-polarized is inferred from the observation that they are polarized, the same way that the attractive property of masses is inferred from the observation of masses that have been attracted. Theories explain observations, and predict what ought to be observed beyond the data used in their formulation. There is no explanatory power of how or why people polarize, nor any testable prediction made by the model.

Re: A new theory about political polarization

#40

Post by jjk166 »

twiceaday wrote: post #18
jjk166 wrote: post #6

People are polarized because they don't like being not polarized isn't really a theory, it's a tautology.

My wife has a cup that she got as a gift from somebody she cares about. It's not a very good looking cup, it can't be microwaved, and it has to be hand-washed. She never uses it, it just sits in the closet. She has this cup not because she wants it but because she can't come to terms with not wanting it, with getting rid of it. Maybe you can vaguely summarize the situation as her wanting this cup, but that misses a l…

I concur, you wife not-not wanting the cup is not a satisfying explanation for why she keeps the cup. Likewise not-not wanting to be polarized is not a satisfying explanation for why people are polarized.
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