{"title":"Polarization of American Elites (Evidence from the Analysis of the Candidates' Policy Statements during the 2020 Presidential Election)","authors":"A. Zhdanov, K. V. Kosolapov","doi":"10.30570/2078-5089-2023-108-1-161-181","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The article is devoted to the study of political polarization in the United States through the prism of the influence of various groups of American elites on this process. Empirically analyzing the campaign messages of Joseph Biden, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, which were spread by their electoral staff during the 2020 presidential campaign, and using the methods of network and LDA analysis, the authors attempt to determine to what extent the Democratic and Republican leaders tend to use tools that polarize society and whether the nature of the influence of these parties on the American society differs. Having documented the presence of all types of political polarization in the United States, the authors show that both Republicans and Democrats significantly add to polarization because, on the one hand, they fuel emotional tension in the society, and on the other hand, they deny legitimacy to the principles of their opponents. The analysis carried out in the article clearly demonstrates that all groups of the American political elites, regardless of party affiliation, are nearly equally susceptible to affective and positional polarization, including those whose political activity is usually assessed as depolarizing. All this refutes the widespread notion that the Republican Party, which exploits the Us vs. Them dichotomy for narrow political purposes, is primarily responsible for the polarization in the country, indicating that something bigger, rather than the rise of right-wing populism or the increased popularity of nativist movements, explains the crisis processes that have been unfolding in the recent years in the United States, as well as in other old democracies.","PeriodicalId":47624,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Political Philosophy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.9000,"publicationDate":"2023-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Political Philosophy","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.30570/2078-5089-2023-108-1-161-181","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ETHICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The article is devoted to the study of political polarization in the United States through the prism of the influence of various groups of American elites on this process. Empirically analyzing the campaign messages of Joseph Biden, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, which were spread by their electoral staff during the 2020 presidential campaign, and using the methods of network and LDA analysis, the authors attempt to determine to what extent the Democratic and Republican leaders tend to use tools that polarize society and whether the nature of the influence of these parties on the American society differs. Having documented the presence of all types of political polarization in the United States, the authors show that both Republicans and Democrats significantly add to polarization because, on the one hand, they fuel emotional tension in the society, and on the other hand, they deny legitimacy to the principles of their opponents. The analysis carried out in the article clearly demonstrates that all groups of the American political elites, regardless of party affiliation, are nearly equally susceptible to affective and positional polarization, including those whose political activity is usually assessed as depolarizing. All this refutes the widespread notion that the Republican Party, which exploits the Us vs. Them dichotomy for narrow political purposes, is primarily responsible for the polarization in the country, indicating that something bigger, rather than the rise of right-wing populism or the increased popularity of nativist movements, explains the crisis processes that have been unfolding in the recent years in the United States, as well as in other old democracies.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Political Philosophy is an international journal devoted to the study of theoretical issues arising out of moral, legal and political life. It welcomes, and hopes to foster, work cutting across a variety of disciplinary concerns, among them philosophy, sociology, history, economics and political science. The journal encourages new approaches, including (but not limited to): feminism; environmentalism; critical theory, post-modernism and analytical Marxism; social and public choice theory; law and economics, critical legal studies and critical race studies; and game theoretic, socio-biological and anthropological approaches to politics. It also welcomes work in the history of political thought which builds to a larger philosophical point and work in the philosophy of the social sciences and applied ethics with broader political implications. Featuring a distinguished editorial board from major centres of thought from around the globe, the journal draws equally upon the work of non-philosophers and philosophers and provides a forum of debate between disparate factions who usually keep to their own separate journals.