Mapping Congress' Growing Polarization

Slate ^ | December 26, 2001 | Jordan Ellenberg

[RockefellerRepublican]

Poole and Rosenthal found that the House and Senate grew steadily less polarized from around 1900 to 1980. Then something happened; polarization has been sharply increasing ever since. A statistical method is fundamentally sound only if it tells you things you already know. The DW-NOMINATE maps tell us, first of all, that throughout the last 100 years both houses of Congress have split into two grand clusters, Democrats and Republicans. Within the Democrats, the Northern and Southern members form two clusters. Sometimes the Northern and Southern Democrats meld into each other without a gap, and other times (especially in the 1940s and '50s) the two clusters are so distant that they seem to constitute two different parties.

[RockefellerRepublican]

Interesting information. Remember that this article was published nine years ago and the statement holds true even more so today. I think one reason is that you don't have what I call a "buffer zone" in congress. A buffer zone is an area between the parties composed of northeastern Republicans and Southern Democrats. There aren't many Lowell Weickers and Lincoln Chafees left in the GOP and not many Charlie Stenholms and Jim Marshalls in the Democratic Party either.

[BenKenobi]

“People were surprised,” Rosenthal says, “that such a simple model can explain so much of the data”

This is the biggest joke ever. Proven when simple analysis can get you 95+ consistantly on every election. Is slate really so clueless?

[eclecticEel]

What a ripoff, they advertised some nice maps of what what they were talking about and there wasn’t a one to be found.