The Roots of Polarization: From the Racial Realignment to the Culture Wars

Author/Contributor(s):	O'Brian, Neil A
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Date:	09/25/2024
Binding:	Paperback
Condition:	NEW

"Why are Democrats and Republicans so divided on "culture war" issues, such as abortion and gun control? Neil O'Brian traces the origins of our contemporary divisions to the moment at which the national parties polarized on civil rights in the 1960s: partisan divisions on civil rights that emerged in the 1960s created a set of constraints for party positioning on other cultural issues in the 1970s. Using a breadth of public opinion data and archival research, O'Brian shows how attitudes on civil rights were interlinked with attitudes on a range of other cultural issues decades before the parties split on these issues. Politicians and interest groups, jockeying for power in the uncertainty of the 1960s electoral landscape, seized on these pre-existing connections to build the parties' contemporary coalitions. Rather than political elites driving partisan divides, O'Brian argues parties were reacting to pre-existing forces churning in the mass public. Together, these findings offer a new frame for understanding how the 1964 racial realignment still shapes the party system today"--