Depolarization, Repolarization and Redistributive Ideological Change in Britain, 1983-2016

Cohen, Gidon; Cohen, Sarah

doi:10.1017/s0007123419000486

Depolarization, Repolarization and Redistributive Ideological Change in Britain, 1983-2016

Cohen, Gidon; Cohen, Sarah

Authors

Professor Gidon Cohen gidon.cohen@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Abstract

In this article we examine party sorting, elite cue and ideological polarization ac- counts of polarization dynamics. We test their diering expectations about trends in redistributive ideological polarization and partisan polarization in the British case using repeated cross-section and panel data. We reject party sorting accounts, which require ideology to be stable and changes in party support to drive partisan polarization, be- cause we nd that ideology trends with elite polarization and that ideological change causes partisan polarization. We reject elite cue accounts, which argue that it is mainly the ideology of partisans that follows elite polarization, because we nd virtually identi- cal trends for initially ideological similar non-partisans too. We thus nd support for an ideological polarization account where changes in elite polarization are associated with general changes in citizen redistributive ideology.

Citation

Cohen, G., & Cohen, S. (2021). Depolarization, Repolarization and Redistributive Ideological Change in Britain, 1983-2016. British Journal of Political Science, 51(3), 1181-1202. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0007123419000486

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Jul 22, 2019
Online Publication Date	Dec 12, 2019
Publication Date	2021-07
Deposit Date	Jul 25, 2019
Publicly Available Date	Aug 6, 2019
Journal	British Journal of Political Science
Print ISSN	0007-1234
Electronic ISSN	1469-2112
Publisher	Cambridge University Press
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	51
Issue	3
Pages	1181-1202
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1017/s0007123419000486

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Copyright Statement
This article has been published in a revised form in British Journal of Political Science http://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123419000486. This version is published under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND. No commercial re-distribution or re-use allowed. Derivative works cannot be distributed. © Cambridge University Press 2019.