The question of the extent and nature of polarization in the American public has received much attention from political science. Though not always debated on this front, polarization on issue and policy opinion is a nuanced subject and sometimes suffers from limitations from survey data. For example, survey questions on policy issues often offer binary responses, which can measure what side individuals fall on but not the extremity of their positions. Furthermore, most data sources on mass issue opinion lack the ability to give a historical account of polarization, as they simply have not been asking questions long enough. The American National Election Studies does not suffer from these pitfalls as much, however, having asked many of the same issue and ideological questions across several decades and doing so with survey scales that capture position extremity. As a result, analyzing the ANES can produce a uniquely informative picture of over time polarization on issue/policy opinion–namely, speaking to how divided Democrats and Republicans have become in their opinion across various issue domains. CONT.
Alexander Agadjanian