Here are some new political science papers that bring scholarly rigor to important substantive questions about American democracy.

1) Southern Illinois’ Jennifer Jerit and Jason Barabas on misleading rhetoric in the Social Security debate (PDF):

Scholars often attribute political ignorance to
individual-level factors, but we concentrate on the quality of the information environment.
Employing a combination of experimental methods and content analysis, we code statements
from the 1998-1999 debate over Social Security reform as either misleading or not misleading.
Then, using surveys conducted during the debate, we examine the impact of individual- and
environmental-level variables on political knowledge about the program’s future. We show that
misleading statements about Social Security’s future cause some citizens to get an important fact
about the program wrong. More precisely, many citizens mistakenly believe that Social Security
will run out of money because political elites occasionally use words that lead to overly
pessimistic assessments of the program’s financial future.

2) Princeton’s Larry Bartels on “What’s the Matter With What’s the Matter with Kansas?“ (PDF):

I focus on four specific questions inspired by [author Thomas] Frank’s account: Has the
white working class abandoned the Democratic party? Has the white working class become
more conservative? Do working class “moral values” trump economics? Are religious voters
distracted from economic issues? My answer to each of these questions is “no.”

3) MIT’s Stephen Ansolabehere, Jonathan Rodden and James M. Snyder, Jr. on exaggerated claims about divisions between “Red” and “Blue” America (PDF):

In this paper we challenge the culture war argument. As we read the works in this
vein there are three key assumptions. First, voters are divided or polarized over issues,
especially moral issues. There are few moderates on abortion, gay marriage, and similar public questions, and the divisions on these questions map into important demographic
categories, especially religion and type of community. Second, moral issues have more
salience or weight in the minds of voters than economic issues. Third, the division maps
into geography. Red state voters are more morally conservative and put more weight on
moral issues…

In this paper we estimate the weight that voters put on moral and economic issues,
as well as measure distributions of voters’ moral and economic policy preferences and
the relationship of such preferences to geography and social groups. We analyze election
results at the state and county level, and survey data from American National Election
Studies and General Social Surveys. The data reject the first two assumption of the
culture war thesis. Specifically, we find the following.

First, one of the basic facts of the Red and Blue America is simply wrong. The
partisan division across states and counties has, in fact, shrunk over the last 100 years,
and the divisions are quite small. Today, America is Purple (section 2).

Second, at the individual level most Americans are ideological moderates rather
than extremists, on both economic and moral issues.

Third, voters’ decisions are driven more by their preferences on economic issues
than by their preferences on moral issues, even today. The relative weight of moral
issues has grown over the past two decades, but economic issues still carry more weight.
Moreover, this pattern does not vary across social groups. Rural voters do not vote on the
basis of moral issues any more than urban voters. The same is true of Red-State voters
versus Blue-State voters. Evangelical Protestants and regular churchgoers place more
weight on economic issues than moral issues, just like everyone else.

4) Emory’s Alan Abramowitz on Morris Fiorina’s Culture War? (PDF):

The evidence presented in this paper does not support Fiorina’s assertion that
polarization in America is largely a myth concocted by social scientists and media
commentators. Fiorina argues that “we [ordinary Americans] instinctively seek the
center while the parties and candidates hang out on the extremes.” But it is mainly the
least interested, least informed and least politically active members of the public who are
clustered near the center of the ideological spectrum. The most interested, informed, and
active citizens are much more polarized in their political views. Moreover, there are
large differences in outlook between Democrats and Republicans, between red state
voters and blue state voters, and between religious voters and secular voters. The high
level of ideological polarization evident among political elites in the United States
reflects real divisions within the American electorate.

Increasing polarization has not caused Americans to become disengaged from the
political process. In 2004, according to data from the American National Election
Studies, more Americans than ever perceived important differences between the political
parties and cared about the outcome of the presidential election. As a result, voter
turnout increased dramatically between 2000 and 2004 and record numbers of Americans
engaged in campaign activities such as trying to influence their friends and neighbors,
displaying bumper stickers and yard signs, and contributing money to the parties and
candidates. The evidence indicates that rather than turning off the public and depressing
turnout, polarization energizes the electorate and stimulates political participation.