1. "The Three W's of Polarization in Congress: Who, When, and (from) Where Members Polarize"
Congress is much more polarized now than it has been in recent decades. While many scholars are interested in the causes and consequences of polarization, few have looked at the kinds of members who choose to pursue relatively more extreme voting agendas in Congress. I develop a theory of how electoral context matters in understanding House members’ voting patterns. Using NP-NOMINATE scores, I test that theory, finding that member voting generally reflects district ideology, consistent with democratic norms. However, institutional context provides a subtle incentive for some members to vote in more extreme ways in Congress. In particular, members tend to become more extreme over their tenure in the House, although this effect is nonlinear. Most surprisingly, substantively important differences between members of the two major parties emerge, with Republican members of Congress showing a greater tendency towards extremism than their Democratic counterparts in the House.
Read the latest draft of this paper: congressional polarization over time - Sept 7 2015.pdf
2. "That Which Divides Us: It's More Than Just Partisan Sorting"
To what extent have polarized political elites yielded greater mass polarization? I argue the spatial model, used to look for mass polarization, fundamentally misunderstands what polarization means for many Americans. In this analysis, I evaluate partisanship through the lens of social identity theory; partisanship as social identity leads ordinary citizens to adopt a psychological attachment to their group, nudging them to perceive greater similarity among copartisans and greater differences between the parties. This leads to greater and more salient political disagreements and a decrease in political trust of others, an affective, but not necessarily spatial, polarization. Using data from the National Election Study cumulative data file, I look at the ways in which partisanship impacts evaluations of in-group copartisans and out-group political adversaries from 1980-2012. I find that this affective polarization has taken root among partisans in the American public.
Read the latest draft of this paper: That Which Divides Us - Liz Norell - July 2015.pdf
3. "Selling Difference, Selling Conflict: The Polarizing Effects of Elite Framing and Problem Definition"
The mechanism by which elites can influence mass opinion is important in understanding the bigger impacts of increased elite polarization. In this paper, I argue that it is through the strategic use of problem definition and issue framing that this polarization has trickled down to the mass public. By looking at the theoretical frameworks provided by the problem definition literature in the public management subfield and the issue framing literature from public opinion, I argue that problem definition is a kind of issue framing that seeks to define issues in a way that supports a preferred policy outcome. Using the debate over climate change as an extended case study, I review the history of the issue of climate change, both scientifically and politically, before turning to a look at how elites have attempted to define the issue in politically advantageous ways. I then look at a number of public opinion surveys from 1980-2012 to discern the extent to which public opinion on questions related to the environment generally and climate change specifically has polarized. I find that, consistent with a model of elite cues and mass use of heuristics, public opinion has polarized quite dramatically over the last three decades.
Read the latest version of this paper:Norell - Selling Difference Selling Conflict - fall 2015.pdf
4. "Disagreement All Around: Dissents from Denial of Certiorari"
The nature of the Supreme Court’s discretionary docket creates opportunities for political scientists to ask interesting and important questions about the extent to which the justices behave in an ideologically strategic way when making decisions at the certiorari stage. The great debate of the judicial processes literature in political science hinges on which model of decision-making best describes the Supreme Court—are the justices attitudinal? legalists? strategic actors? However, by focusing on case outcomes, so much of the judicial literature fails to recognize the first stage in the Court’s process, which is the decision on whether to hear a case at all. When the Court denies certiorari, the observable outcome is generally dichotomous; the Court did or did not grant cert. However, occasionally justices choose to signal to the public their disagreement with the Court’s cert decision by writing a dissent from denial of certiorari. Studying the evolution and use of dissents from denial of cert is one way to gain leverage on questions of how justices’ ideologies (i.e., attitudinal factors) and case (legal) factors influence docket selection. In the end, I argue that dissents from denial of cert serve a number of functions; some are used in a rather perfunctory and hence genuinely puzzling manner, merely noting when a justice would have granted cert without shedding any light into the reasons why. In other cases, however, justices provide a great deal of information about their rationale for having wished to grant certiorari or what specific case factors make a compelling argument for Supreme Court consideration. Not all dissents from denial of certiorari, then, function in the same manner; however, it is clear that at least a portion of these dissents are used intentionally to pursue a justice’s ideological agenda.
Read the latest version of this paper: Disagreement All Around - Dissents from Denial of Certiorari.pdf