POL 401 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Gerrymandering, Confirmation Bias, Freedom Caucus

• School: University of Miami
• Department: Political Science
• Course: POL 401
• Professor: Uscinski Joseph

Document Summary

Lecture 2: why congress doesn"t work: confirmation bias: nowadays there are so many different options to receive news about politics. Interest in politics has not increased, so people tend to read sources that confirm their biases and their policy views: hypothesis 1: parties in congress. Party votes when republicans vote against democrats or vice versa. Party unity on the rise i. voters (& districts) have become more partisan over time ii. series of events or people iii. polarizing party activities iv. partisanship as an arms race: leaders incentivizing partisanship. gerrymandering i. regional shift flipped over time ii. since the 1970"s congress has become more partisan than their districts: south gop, northeast democrats. Gerrymandering not a cause of partisanship: congress became polarized first, senate became more polarized in the 90s. Gives each party incentive to out-organize the other party: even when a party is divided like the current republican freedom caucus, arms race, finds reciprocal partisanship in: Individual roll call votes: overall levels of annual party unity.