The Growing Rural-Urban Political Divide and Democratic Vulnerability

Throughout American history and as recently as the early 1990s, each of the major political parties included both rural and some urban constituencies, but since then the nation has become deeply divided geographically. Rural areas have become increasingly dominated by the Republican Party and urban places by the Democratic Party. This growing rural-urban divide is fostering polarization and democratic vulnerability. We examine why this cleavage might endanger democracy, highlighting various mechanisms: the combination of long-standing political institutions that give extra leverage to sparsely populated places with a transformed party system in which one party dominates those places; growing social divergence between rural and urban areas that fosters “us” versus “them” dynamics; economic changes that make rural areas ripe for grievance politics; and party leaders willing to cater to such resentments. We present empirical evidence that this divide is threatening democracy and consider how it might be mitigated.