Why Washington Won’t Work
Marc J. Hetherington
Vanderbilt University
Thomas J. Rudolph
University of Illinois
The Electoral Map in 2000
… in 2004
… in 2012
Challenging the Conventional Wisdom: Mo
Fiorina and Culture Wars?
Ordinary citizens are not polarized.
Only their choices are polarized.
Deeply v. Closely Divided
Very Few Issue Differences on Economics
Culture War?
Why Washington Won’t Work
Co-author Tom Rudolph and I attempt to make
sense of the polarization debate and explain why
nothing gets done in Washington.
If the mass public really is moderate, as Fiorina
suggests, then why do they put up with
immoderation from their representatives?
We suggest that polarization actually does exist, but
scholars have been looking in the wrong places.
Key terms
 Polarization versus “Sorting”
 We have sorting on issues, but few extreme opinions
 Polarization suggests extreme opinions. Strong emotional
reactions.
A Picture of Polarization?
 To date, many treatments of polarization in the
electorate have adopted a pretty literal definition.
Do we see clustering toward the poles?
 The focus has been almost exclusively on ideology
and policy preferences.
We See Polarization like this Among Elites
70
60
50
40
Democrats
30
Republicans
20
10
0
lt -.9 -.8 -.7 -.6 -.5 -.4 -.3 -.2 -.1
0
0
.1
.2
.3
.4
.5
.6
.7
.8 gt .9
thru thru thru thru thru thru thru thru thru thru thru thru thru thru thru thru thru thru
-.9 -.8 -.7 -.6 -.5 -.4 -.3 -.2 -.1
.1
.2
.3
.4
.5
.6
.7
.8
.9
But Not in the Mass Public
50
45
40
35
30
25
Democrats
20
Republicans
15
10
5
0
Extremely Liberal
Liberal
Slightly Liberal
Moderate/Haven't
Thought Much
Slightly Conservative
Conservative
Extremely
Conservative
This Shouldn’t Be Surprising
 People who are extreme do not want to call
themselves extreme because being extreme is not
fashionable in the U.S.
 People who do not know much about politics, which
is a ton of people, choose the middle.
 Furthermore, is there anything, beyond politics, that
all Americans would express strong feelings about?


Baseball? Instant replay?
Food? Are some foods polarizing?
Is Polarization in Congress Exclusively Ideological?
 When conservative/liberal ideas become
liberal/conservative ones, do
Republicans/Democrats support them?
 Rarely.




Individual Mandate on Health Insurance.
Cap and Trade
Education Reform based on Federal Standards
Prescription Drug Benefit Under Medicare
Polarization in Congress is Perhaps Partisan as well
as Ideological
 Narrow majorities in Congress eliminate incentives
for parties to cooperate on anything.
 When the minority feels it can win the majority in
the next election, providing the majority with any
legislative victories is not in the minority’s best
interest.
What about Polarized Feelings Instead of Polarized
Issue Preferences?
Partisans’ Feelings about Their Party and the Other
Party
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Carter
Reagan
Bush I
Clinton
Bush II
Obama
Polarization Elsewhere? Feelings
Cold Feeling Thermometer Scores Over Time, 19702010
Group
Mean Score
1970
John Birch Society
24
People Who Use Marijuana
12
People Who Riot in Cities
10
1976
Black Militants
24
1984
Homosexuals
30
2010
Democrats about Republican Party
23
Republicans about Democratic Party
23
Percent Answering "Most of the Time" or "Just About Always"
Polarization Elsewhere 2? Political Trust
80
70
Republicans
60
Democrats
50
40
30
20
10
0
Johnson
Nixon/Ford
Carter
Reagan
Bush
Presidency
Clinton
Bush II
Obama
Not Just Polarized Republicans
70
60
Percent Trusting
50
40
30
Republicans
Democrats
20
10
0
Why Polarized Trust Matters
 Its existence means that consensus in the public
never develops on policy matters.
 And, if consensus fails to develop, there is little
pressure on office holders to compromise.
 The key to our story are those who are opposite the
ideology of the president’s party.
Why no compromise from our
representatives?
 Which members of the public are important to which
members of Congress?


Republicans in Congress care about Republicans’ opinions
Democrats in Congress care about Democrats’ opinions
 Without trust in government, those people follow
their party leaders’ opinions on issues


No pressure from public to do something different than to
follow their party leaders in Congress
Minority party leaders want to present contrasts with the
president, not give him help.
Could a Great President overcome this?
 Lincoln
 Roosevelt
 Reagan
I Don’t Think So



What incentives do minority party leaders have to work
together with the president?
How do party margins in Congress affect those incentives?
The Story of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
Thanks!
The Politics of Strange Bedfellows
 Partisan cues no longer work – Nixon can no longer
“go to China”.
 Cues from institutions not connected directly to
political parties are the key.





Military and the Environment
Environmentalists and Nuclear Power
Business Community and Immigration Reform
The Pope and Government Spending on the Poor
Steve Jobs and Teachers Unions
If Mitt can’t do it, maybe the US Military can
 Effective cue givers need two characteristics and
the US Military have them both.

1) Trustworthiness (Lupia and McCubbins 1998)
Americans trust it more than any institution, public or private
(GSS 2012). 55 percent said they had “a great deal of
confidence” in it.
 The two closest competitors over time have been the
“scientific community” (confidence now 42), and “organized
religion” (confidence now 21).
 Among political institutions, there is little confidence.
Supreme Court (30 percent), executive branch (15 percent),
Congress (7 percent).
 Lack of trust in political institutions is a stumbling block to
government-sponsored policy innovation (Hetherington
2005).

And
 2) Knowledge. Military has this, too.
 Lots of large term planning about strategic
implications (Center for Naval Analysis 2007; US
Army 2007; US Navy 2010)
 Production of electric vehicles in Army
 “Great Green Fleet” for Navy by 2016
 Air Force has 37 bases partially powered by wind and
solar energy
 Navy and Air Force at the forefront of developing
alternative fuels for their aircraft.
End Result: Shrinking Partisan Polarization
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Republican
Democrat
GovEPA
Gov-Mil Mil-EPA Mil-Mil
Thanks
Institutional Cue Giving and Persuasion: Enlisting the
Military as Environmental Protector
MARC J. HETHERINGTON AND CINDY D. KAM
Public Opinion About the Environment -- Little
Scholarly Attention
 Public opinion on the environment has not gotten
much traction in political science journals
We found only 2 articles published in the 3 major
general interest journals since 2005 (Egan and Mullin
2012 JOP; Wood and Vedlitz 2007 AJPS).
 Odd, particularly as it relates to public opinion research.
Both the study of public opinion and climate science are
quantitative empirical matters.
 Furthermore, the issue is important. Not to be overly
dramatic, but climate change could have a profound
impact on human life in the not too distant future.

Little attention -- But it has been toasty outdoors
 2010 was the warmest year since the government
started to keep records 130 years ago.
 The 10 warmest years on record have all taken
place in the last 15 years.
 Scientists are pretty certain humans are
contributing to this state of affairs. Indeed a
scientific consensus has developed.
Scientific, but not public, consensus
 A consensus among experts ought to cause
consensus to develop in the public.
 However, Americans are not moving toward
consensus. Public opinion has been polarizing
since 2007, with Republicans and conservatives
becoming more skeptical (McCright and Dunlap
2011). Most recent Pew data collected in May
demonstrates 40 and 50 point gaps.
 This points up the importance of elite rhetoric
relative to expert rhetoric to shape public
opinion. Politics matters!
Can Public Opinion on the Environment Change?
 Cindy and I think the answer is yes, through cue
giving and cue taking. Why?
The issue is complicated.
 Knowledge on it is low.

But, the cue giving environment has changed for the
worse.
- With polarization, partisans follow out party cues more
than in party cues (Nicholson 2012).
- Hence it is harder for partisan politicians to get people
to follow them when they take a heterodox stand on an
issue.
Military has other persuasive advantages
 The Military’s interest is “surprising.” People do
not instinctively connect the Military to the
environment
 In fact, the public perceives the Military as
conservative on the environment. Using a
convenience sample we find . . .
EPA, 2.55 on NES seven point scale question
 Democratic party – 3.58
 US Military – 5.37
 Republican party – 5.44

The power of “biased” advisors
 Being seen as conservative, especially by
conservatives and Republicans, is a virtue.
 The effectiveness of “biased” advisors in opinion
change (Calvert 1985).
 People attend more carefully to counterstereotypical information (Chaiken and
Maheswaran 1994).
 Nixon to China. Clinton on Welfare Reform.
Let’s Test it Out – 2010 CCES
 2 X 2 Factorial Design – Step One, Endorser,

The [U.S. Military/federal government in Washington] has
pioneered a range of new plans to combat global warming.
Part of the reason is self-interested – the [military/federal
government] spends billions of dollars a year on fossil fuels
to run its vehicles. Part of the reason is strategic –
[military/government] experts believe that climate change
might increase instability in the world, leading to more
armed conflicts over scarce resources like oil. In fact, the
[U.S. Military/federal government] has already taken many
steps to deal with climate change, including providing
funding to build thousands of electric powered vehicles,
running some of its vehicles on biofuels, and running
dozens of [military/government] regional and national
control centers on electricity produced by solar and wind
power.
Step 2, Implementer
 To address concerns about global warming, a
proposal has been made that would provide the [U.S.
Military/EPA] with a $2 billion appropriation to
partner with businesses to develop the
[military’s/government’s] recent innovations into
products designed to increase energy efficiency.
Supporters think the proposal has the potential to
make a big difference in protecting the environment
and America’s strategic interests. Opponents think it
is a waste of taxpayer money. What do you think?
Would you support or oppose such a program?
Figure 2. Attitudes towards the Military, EPA, and Federal Government
Table 2: Attitudes towards Institutions and Support for
Environmental Spending
And: Shrinking Ideological Polarization
100
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Conservative
Liberal
GovEPA
GovMil
MilEPA
Mil-Mil
Table 3. Global Warming Attitudes, Cues, and Support
for Environmental Spending
Second Study: 2012 CCES
 The (U.S. Military/Federal Government) believes that climate change is
occurring. It sees climate change as a serious strategic threat to American
interests. Civil wars occur more often during warmer than average years,
making climate change a “threat multiplier” that could require more military
interventions in the future. The (U.S. Military/Federal Government) also is
concerned that worsening conditions caused by climate change in unstable
places like Somalia could produce fertile ground for terrorist recruitment.
Given the marked unrest in the Middle East, the (U.S. Military/Federal
Government) also sees clear advantage in increasing the nation’s energy
independence, which the development of alternative fuels would allow.
 We then vary different plausible steps either the military or the government has
taken to show that they are serious about the effort.
Endorsement
 The U.S. Military is
 Al Gore is
 George W. Bush is
 Policymakers are
advocating a $4 billion increase on spending to develop alternative fuels to oil and
gas to combat the effects of global climate change.
So What?
 Public opinion matters as it relates to government
action (Page, Shapiro, and Dempsey 1987).
 If public opinion on climate change remains
polarized, it is less likely that steps will be taken to
mitigate it.
 Making matters worse, public trust in government is
extraordinarily low. Since government will be a
central part of any solution to climate change, low
trust is a further stumbling block.
The Solution: The US Military
 The Military provides a potential solution to the
problem, turning a proposed program that not half
of people think is worthwhile into one that over half
think is worthwhile.
 It “works” because the Military’s popularity is
greatest among exactly those who are most skeptical
about warming. Of course, these are also the folks
who are most skeptical about the EPA and the
federal government as a whole.
 Even liberals like the Military these days, so they
aren’t spooked by it playing this surprising role.
Just the Environment?
 We suspect that marrying policies to the Military
may have had salutary effects in many realms.

Support for integration picks up after 1948. Until then, the
Military was an outwardly racist institution.

Allowing gays to serve in the military may have played a role in
breaking down barriers to gay rights over the past 20 years.

These possible links suggest that trustworthiness might be more
important than knowledge in affecting the power of a cue giver.
Thanks