America is seeing both partisan animosity and lowered trust in social institutions: James Druckman
Political Science at the University of Rochester. Speaking to Srijana Mitra Das, he discusses major gaps — and some points of unity — in US politics:
Q. What is the core of your research?
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A. I’m interested in the extent of polarisation across different divides in the United States and the consequences of these. Polarisation has diverse manifestations — for example, Democrats and Republicans have sharply differing ideological positions while another kind is where partisans really dislike one another and increasingly display their animus. A third example is trust in institutions — at the turn of the century, for instance, Republicans and Democrats had similar levels of trust in science. Now, we see a large divide over that. There are growing gaps related to many key institutions which govern society. My research looks at how types of polarisation have changed over time — and what that implies for politics.
Q. The US will soon vote between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris for President — which factors are likely to drive voter choices?
A. Growth in the second type of polarisation I mentioned is important here, where partisans harbour more and more dislike for the other side. They are increasingly unlikely to want to support someone from the opposite group. There’s been fewer people defecting when they cast their vote — we used to see a lot more people voting one party for President and another for the Senate. That has reduced, in part because partisans don’t want to go against their team — and they really dislike the other one. This election shake-up probably
