Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

International polarity and America's polarization

  • Original Article
  • Published:
International Politics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

There is a growing consensus that the United States is undergoing a period of political polarization, particularly among elites. The causes of this polarization remain under-researched. We argue that shifts in the international distribution of power influence America's polarization. To demonstrate the argument, this article analyzes changes in power and polarization quantitatively and qualitatively from 1945 to 2005. A key finding is that greater relative power on the world stage substantially increases polarization and some of its correlates, like income inequality. The argument also measures the extent of international influence on domestic polarization and makes novel predictions on when and why polarization will fall.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
Figure 4
Figure 5

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Although we are arguing that in times of safety people ‘argue around the flag’, our claims are connected to but distinct from the celebrated and contested ‘rally round the flag’ effect, where recourse to force galvanizes a public behind its leader(s), because we seek to explain polarization, not approval ratings, and our analytical time horizon is longer. See Mueller (1985, pp. 53, 58), cf. Brody (1991, p. 77), Zaller (1992, p. 119), Trubowitz and Mellow (2005, pp. 446, 449).

  2. Gourevitch (1986, pp. 63–65). Second image reversed arguments are outside in; that is, they lay stress on how the international environment conditions internal state dynamics. Second image reversed arguments are typically contrasted with second image explanations that take an inside out view. In second image arguments, internal state traits are the key factors driving outcomes like foreign policy and war proneness (Rosecrance and Stein eds., 1993; Milner, 1997; Trubowitz, 1998; Narizny, 2007).

  3. Congressional representatives face elections every 2 years, while members of the Senate face election every 6 years with a third of the seats up every 2 years.

  4. Regression analyses predicting each of the series by their lagged values shows that we cannot reject the null hypothesis of a unit root.

  5. Variously specified error correction models show similar results.

  6. A model including concurrent changes shows that this is true.

  7. The coefficients cannot be interpreted substantively since neither the key predictor nor the dependent variable has an intuitive metric.

  8. While no parameter estimate achieves conventional levels of statistical significance when Senate polarization is investigated, changes in power at one lag are nearly significant (P=0.11) and inequality continues to perform less well. The explanatory power of the model predicting Senate polarization (R2=0.06) is lower than in the model predicting House polarization (R2=0.41). This is likely due to the greater responsiveness exhibited by members of the House, who are elected every 2 years.

  9. We have also tested our model using income share of the top 10 per cent of earners (Saez's 2008 data archive) and the Gini coefficient of family income (US Census data). All our measures of inequality correlate at over 0.9. Substituting in the Gini coefficient, changes in power continue to be significant at two lags (P=0.023). Changes in the Gini coefficient are significant at one lag (P=0.044). In this equation, the adjusted R2=0.47 and power remains the strongest predictor of polarization. Using the top 10 per cent of earners rather than the top 1 per cent makes no difference in the result.

  10. In some instances, including a third lag improved the explanatory power of the regression, but the substantive result remained the same.

References

  • Abramowitz, A. (2008) Don’t blame primary voters for polarization. The Forum 5 (January), http://www.bepress.com/forum/vol5/iss4/art4.

  • Abramowitz, A., Alexander, B. and Gunning, M. (2006) Don’t blame redistricting for uncompetitive elections. Political Science & Politics 39 (1): 87–90.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Abramowitz, A. and Saunders, K. (2005) Why can’t we all just get along? The reality of polarized America. The Forum 3(June), http://www.bepress.com/forum/vol3/iss2/art1.

  • Aldrich, J.H., Sullivan, J.L. and Borgida, E. (1989) Foreign affairs and issue voting: Do presidential candidates ‘waltz before a blind audience?’ American Political Science Review 83 (1): 123–141.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Amar, A. (2005) America's Constitution: A Biography. New York: Random House.

    Google Scholar 

  • Andreski, S. (1968) Military Organization and Society. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Augustine of Hippo (1984) City of God, Translated by Henry Bettenson. New York: Penguin Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bacevich, A.J. (2008) The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. New York: Metropolitan Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bafumi, J. and Shapiro, R.Y. (2009) A new partisan voter. Journal of Politics 71 (1): 1–24.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bartels, L. (2006) Is the water rising? Reflections on inequality and American democracy. Political Science & Politics 39 (1): 39–42.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bartels, L. (2008) Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Beinart, P. (2008) When politics no longer stops at the water's edge: Partisan polarization and foreign policy. In: P.S. Nivola and D. Brady (eds.) Red and Blue Nation? Consequences and Correction of America's Polarized Politics. Washington DC: Brookings/Hoover, pp. 151–184.

    Google Scholar 

  • Betts, R.K. (2005) The political support system for American primacy. International Affairs 81 (1): 1–14.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Betts, R.K. (2007) Enemies of Intelligence: Knowledge and Power in American National Security. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Betts, R.K. and Christensen, T. (2000/2001) China: Getting the questions right. The National Interest 62 (Winter): 17–29.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bishop, B. (2008) The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded American is Tearing Us Apart. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Borstelmann, T. (2001) The Cold War and the Color Line: American Race Relations in the Global Arena. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brady, D. and Han, H. (2006) Polarization then and now: A historical perspective. In: P.S. Nivola and D. Brady (eds.) Red and Blue Nation? Characteristics and Causes of America's Polarized Politics. Washington DC: Brookings/Hoover.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brody, R. (1991) Assessing the President: The Media, Elite Opinion, and Public Support. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brooks, S. and Wohlforth, W.C. (2000/2001) Power, globalization, and the end of the cold war. International Security 25 (3): 5–53.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brooks, S. and Wohlforth, W.C. (2002) American primacy in perspective. Foreign Affairs 81 (4): 20–33.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Brownstein, R. (2007) The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America. New York: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Busby, J. and Monten, J. (2008) Without heirs? Assessing the decline of liberal internationalism in US foreign policy. Perspectives on Politics 6 (3): 451–472.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Campbell, J. (2006) Polarization runs deep, even by yesterday's standards. In: P.S. Nivola and D. Brady (eds.) Red and Blue Nation? Characteristics and Causes of America's Polarized Politics. Washington DC: Brookings/Hoover.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cannon, C. (2006) Polarization runs deep, even by yesterday's standards. In: P.S. Nivola and D. Brady (eds.) Red and Blue Nation? Characteristics and Causes of America's Polarized Politics. Washington DC: Brookings/Hoover.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carmines, E. and Stimson, J. (1989) Issue Evolution: Race and the Transformation of American Politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chaudoin, S., Milner, H.V. and Tingley, D. (2010) The center still holds: Liberal internationalism survives. International Security 35 (1): 75–94.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Christensen, T. (1996) Useful Adversaries: Grand Strategy, Domestic Mobilization, and Sino-American Conflict, 1947–1958. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Christensen, T. (2006) Fostering stability or creating a monster? The rise of China and US policy toward East Asia. International Security 31 (1): 81–126.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Coby, J.P. (1999) Machiavelli's Romans: Liberty and Greatness in the Discourses on Livy. New York: Lexington Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coser, L. (1956) The Functions of Social Conflict. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dallek, R. (1998) Flawed Giant: Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961–1973. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dallek, R. (2003) Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963. New York: Little Brown.

    Google Scholar 

  • Daschle, T. (1996) The water's edge. Foreign Policy 103 (Summer): 3–19.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Economist. (2007) The hobbled hegemon. pp. 29–32.

  • Edelstein, D. (2002) Managing uncertainties: Beliefs about intentions and the rise of the great powers. Security Studies 12 (1): 1–40.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Edsall, T. (2006) Why other sources of polarization matter more. In: P.S. Nivola and D. Brady (eds.) Red and Blue Nation? Characteristics and Causes of America's Polarized Politics. Washington DC: Brookings/Hoover.

    Google Scholar 

  • Enloe, C. (1989) Bananas, Beaches, and Bases: Sexual Politics at the End of the Cold War. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Evangelista, M. (1999) Unarmed Forces: The Transnational Movement to End the Cold War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Farnham, B.R. (1997) Roosevelt and the Munich Crisis: A Study in Political Decision-Making. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fiorina, M., with Abrams, S. and Pope, J. (2006) Culture War? The Myth of Polarized America. New York: Pearson Longman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fiorina, M. and Levendusky, M. (2006) Disconnected: The political class versus the people. In: P.S. Nivola and D. Brady (eds.) Red and Blue Nation? Characteristics and Causes of America's Polarized Politics. Washington DC: Brookings.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fogel, R.W. (2000) The Fourth Great Awakening and the Future of Egalitarianism. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fordham, B. (1998) Building the Cold War Consensus: The Political Economy of US National Security Policy, 1949–1951. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Friedberg, A.L. (1988) The Weary Titan: Britain and the Experience of Relative Decline, 1895–1905. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gaddis, J.L. (1998) We Now Know: Rethinking Cold War History. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gaddis, J.L. (2005) Strategies of Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy During the Cold War. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Galston, W. and Nivola, P. (2006) Delineating the problem. In: P.S. Nivola and D. Brady (eds.) Red and Blue Nation? Characteristics and Causes of America's Polarized Politics. Washington DC: Brookings/Hoover.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gelman, A., Park, D., Shor, B., Bafumi, B. and Cortina, J. (2008) Red State. Blue State, Rich State, Poor State. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibbon, E. (1993 [1776]) The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. New York: Everyman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gourevitch, P. (1986) Politics in Hard Times: Comparative Responses to International Economic Crises. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gourevitch, P. (2002) Reinventing the America state: Political dynamics in the post-cold war era. In: I. Katznelson and M. Shefter (eds.) Shaped by War and Trade: International Influences on American Political Development. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hacker, J.S. and Pierson, P. (2010) Winner-Take-All Politics: How Washington Made the Rich Richer – and Turned Its Back on the Middle Class. New York: Simon and Schuster.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall, J. and Lindholm, C. (1999) Is America Breaking Apart? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hetherington, M. and Weiler, J. (2009) Divided We Stand: Polarization, Authoritarianism, and the Contemporary Political Divide. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hintze, O. (1975) The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holmes, S. and Sunstein, C. (1999) The Cost of Rights: Why Liberty Depends on Taxes. New York: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Holsti, O. (1996) Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hume, D. (1987) Essays: Moral, Political, and Literary. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ikenberry, G.J. (2002) Introduction. In: G.J. Ikenberry (ed.) America Unrivaled: The Future of the Balance of Power. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jackson, K.T. (1985) Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacobson, G.C. (2006) Disconnected or joined at the hip? In: P.S. Nivola and D. Brady (eds.) Red and Blue Nation? Characteristics and Causes of America's Polarized Politics. Washington DC: Brookings/Hoover.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacobson, G.C. (2007) A Divider, Not a Uniter: George Bush and the American People. New York: Pearson Longman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jacobson, G.C. (2011) A Divider, Not a Uniter: George Bush and the American People. 2nd edn. New York: Pearson Longman.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jervis, R. (1985) Perceiving and coping with threat. In: R. Jervis, R.N. Lebow and J.G. Stein (eds.) Psychology and Deterrence. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jervis, R. (2005) American Foreign Policy in a New Era. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Joffe, J. (1995) Bismarck’ or ‘Britain’? Toward an American grand strategy after bipolarity. International Security 19 (4): 94–117.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kang, D.C. (2003) Getting Asia wrong. International Security 27 (4): 57–85.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kant, I. (1991) Political Writings, Translated by H.B. Nisbet. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaplan, F. (2007) It's time to sharpen the scissors: Breaking down the $739 billion defense budget. Slate, http://www.slate.com/id/2159102/.

  • Kaplan, F. (2009) Aerial combat: The air force tries to save a fighter plane that's never seen battle. Slate, http://www.slate.com/id/2212034/.

  • Kay, J.H. (1997) Asphalt Nation: How the Automobile Took Over America, and How We Can Take It Back. New York: Crown Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Krugman, P. (2007) The Conscience of a Liberal. New York: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kupchan, C. and Trubowitz, P. (2007) Dead center: The demise of liberal internationalism in the United States. International Security 32 (2): 7–44.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Laitin, D. (1998) Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Populations in the Near Abroad. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Layne, C. (2004) The balance of power and the war on terrorism: The paradoxes of American hegemony. In: T.V. Paul, J. Wirtz, and M. Fortmann (eds.) Balance of Power: Theory and Practice in the 21st Century. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, J.W. and Litai, X. (1999) China's search for a modern air force. International Security 24 (1): 64–94.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lieber, K. and Alexander, G. (2005) Waiting for balancing: Why the world is not pushing back. International Security 30 (1): 109–139.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lobel, A. (2001) Anticipating the collapse? Political judgment and the debate over CIA assessments of the Soviet Union, 1975–1991. PhD dissertation, Harvard University.

  • Lobell, S., Ripsman, N. and Taliaferro, J. (eds.) (2009) Neoclassical Realism, the State, and Foreign Policy. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • MacDonald, P.K. and Parent, J.M. (2011) Graceful decline? The surprising success of great power retrenchment. International Security 35 (4): 7–44.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Machiavelli, N. (1998) The Prince, Translated by H. Mansfield. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Mann, M. (1986) The Sources of Social Power: A History of Power from the Beginning to A.D. 1760, Vol. 1. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Mann, M. (1988) States, War, and Capitalism: Studies in Political Sociology. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mann, T. (2006) Polarizing the house of representatives: How much does gerrymandering matter?. In: P.S. Nivola and D. Brady (eds.) Red and Blue Nation? Characteristics and Causes of America's Polarized Politics. Washington DC: Brookings/Hoover.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCarty, N., Poole, K. and Rosenthal, H. (1997) Income Redistribution and the Realignment of American Politics. Washington DC: American Enterprise Institute Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCarty, N., Poole, K. and Rosenthal, H. (2006) Polarized America: The Dance of Ideology and Unequal Riches. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McDonald, F. (1979) E Pluribus Unum: The Formation of the American Republic 1776–1789. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller, G. and Schofield, N. (2008) The transformation of the Republican and Democratic Party coalitions in the US. Perspectives on Politics 6 (3): 433–450.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Milner, H. (1997) Interests, Institutions, and Information: Domestic Politics and International Relations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Montesquieu, C.d.S.B.d. (1965 [1748]) Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and Their Decline, Translated by David Lowenthal. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mueller, J. (1985) War, Presidents, and Public Opinion. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mueller, J. (1994) Policy and Opinion in the Gulf War. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mueller, J. (2006) Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats, and Why We Believe Them. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mutz, D. (2006) How the media divide us. In: P.S. Nivola and D. Brady (eds.) Red and Blue Nation? Characteristics and Causes of America's Polarized Politics. Washington DC: Brookings/Hoover.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mutz, D. (2007) Effects of ‘in your face’ television discourse on perceptions of a legitimate opposition. American Political Science Review 101 (4): 621–636.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Narizny, K. (2007) The Political Economy of Grand Strategy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nelson, W.E., Rishikof, H., Messinger, I.S. and Jo, M. (2009) The liberal tradition of the Supreme Court clerkship: Its rise, fall, and reincarnation? Vanderbilt Law Review 62 (6): 1749–1814.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nivola, P. (2003) Can the government be serious? In: H. Aaron, J. Lindsay, and P.S. Nivola (eds.) Agenda for the Nation. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Packer, G. (2011) The broken contract: Inequality and American decline. Foreign Affairs 90 (6): 20–31.

    Google Scholar 

  • Page, B. and Bouton, M. (2006) The Foreign Policy Disconnect: What Americans Want from Our Leaders but Don’t Get. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Parent, J.M., Bafumi, J., Kupchan, C.A. and Trubowitz, P.L. (2008) Correspondence: Of polarity and polarization. International Security 33 (1): 170–173.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Patterson, J.T. (1996) Grand Expectations: The United States, 1945–1974. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Piketty, T. and Saez, E. (2003) Income inequality in the United States, 1913–1998. Quarterly Journal of Economics 118 (1): 1–39.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Piketty, T. and Saez, E. (2006) The evolution of top incomes: A historical and international perspective. American Economic Review, Papers and Proceedings 96 (2): 200–205.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Plutarch (1992) Marcus Cato. Translated by John Dryden. The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans, Vol. 1. New York: Modern Library.

    Google Scholar 

  • Polybius (1922) The Histories, Vol. 1. Translated by W.R. Paton. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Porter, B. (1994) War and the Rise of the State: The Military Foundations of Modern States. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Posen, B. (2003) Command of the commons: The military foundations of US hegemony. International Security 28 (1): 5–46.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Posner, D.A. (2005) Institutions and Ethnic Politics in Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Press, D. and Lieber, K. (2006) The rise of American nuclear primacy. Foreign Affairs 85 (2): 42–54.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rosecrance, R. and Stein, A. (eds.) (1993) The Domestic Bases of Grand Strategy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ross, R.S. (1997) Beijing as a conservative power. Foreign Affairs 76 (2): 33–45.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ross, R.S. (2004) Bipolarity and balancing in East Asia. In: T.V. Paul, J. Wirtz and M. Fortmann (eds.) Balance of Power: Theory and Practice in the 21st Century. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roy, D. (1994) Hegemon on the horizon? China's threat to East Asian security. International Security 19 (1): 149–168.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Russett, B. (1975) The Americans’ retreat from world power. Political Science Quarterly 90 (1): 1–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Saez, E. (2008) Income inequality in the United States. Data archive available at, http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/.

  • Segal, G. (1999) Does China matter? Foreign Affairs 78 (5): 24–36.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shapiro, R.Y. and Bloch-Elkon, Y. (2005) Partisan conflict, public opinion, and US foreign policy. Unpublished Manuscript, Columbia University.

  • Simmel, G. (1964) Conflict and the Web of Group-Affiliations, Translated by K. Wolff and R. Bendix. New York: Free Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Singer, J.D., Bremer, S. and Stuckey, J. (1972) Capability distribution, uncertainty, and major power war, 1820–1965. In: B. Russett (ed.) Peace, War, and Numbers. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, pp. 19–48.

    Google Scholar 

  • Singer, P.W. (2003) Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute). (1992–2006) SIPRI Yearbook: Armaments, Disarmament, and International Security. New York: Oxford University Press.

  • Skocpol, T. (1979) States and Social Revolutions. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Snyder, J. (2000) From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict. New York: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Snyder, J., Shapiro, R.Y. and Bloch-Elkon, Y. (2009) Free hand abroad, divide and rule at home. World Politics 61 (1): 155–187.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Solberg, C. (1984) Hubert Humphrey: A Biography. New York: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Spykman, N. (1925) The Social Theory of Georg Simmel. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sumner, W.G. (2002) Folkways: A Study of Mores, Manners, Customs, and Morals. Mineola, NY: Dover.

    Google Scholar 

  • Theriault, S.M. (2008) Party Polarization in Congress. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Thucydides (1998) The Peloponnesian War, Translated by Walter Blanco. New York: Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Thurber, T.N. (1999) The Politics of Equality. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tilly, C. (1993) Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1992. Cambridge, UK: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Toner, R. and Rutenberg, J. (2006) Partisan divide on Iraq exceeds split on Vietnam. New York Times.

  • Trachtenberg, M. (1999) A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement 1945–1963. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trubowitz, P. (1998) Defining the National Interest: Conflict and Change in American Foreign Policy. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Trubowitz, P. and Mellow, N. (2005) Going bipartisan’: Politics by other means. Political Science Quarterly 120 (3): 433–453.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Walt, S.M. (1987) The Origins of Alliances. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walt, S.M. (2002) Keeping the world ‘off-balance’: Self restraint and US foreign policy. In: G.J. Ikenberry (ed.) America Unrivaled: The Future of the Balance of Power. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Waltz, K.N. (1979) Theory of International Politics. New York: McGraw-Hill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weber, M. (1958) From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, Translated by H.H. Gerth and C.W. Mills. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wohlforth, W.C. (1993) The Elusive Balance: Power and Perceptions during the Cold War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wohlforth, W.C. (2002) US strategy in a unipolar world. In: G.J. Ikenberry (ed.) America Unrivaled: The Future of the Balance of Power. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wohlforth, W.C. (2011) No one loves a realist explanation. International Politics 28 (4/5): 441–459.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wood, G.S. (1993) The Radicalism of the American Revolution. New York: Vintage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Xenophon (2008) The Anabasis of Cyrus, Translated by Wayne Ambler Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zaller, J. (1992) The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This article was presented at the Dickey Center for International Understanding, Dartmouth College, 19 October 2007, the University of Miami, 3 March 2009, and the International Studies Association Conference, Montreal, Canada, 16 March 2011. Our thanks to participants of these seminars as well as Kristen Anderson, Richard Betts, Deborah Jordan Brooks, Stephen Brooks, James Brown, Robert Erikson, Linda Fowler, Robert Jervis, Dean Lacy, Ned Lebow, Jennifer Lind, Abigail Parent, Ryan Parks, Daryl Press, Robert Shapiro, Jack Snyder, Kenneth Waltz, William Wohlforth and three anonymous reviewers.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Government, Dartmouth College, 6108 Silsby Hall, Hanover, 03755, New Hampshire, USA

    Joseph Bafumi

  2. Department of Political Science, University of Miami, 5250 University Drive, Coral Gables, 33124, Florida, USA

    Joseph M Parent

Authors
  1. Joseph Bafumi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Joseph M Parent
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Bafumi, J., Parent, J. International polarity and America's polarization. Int Polit 49, 1–35 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1057/ip.2011.34

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/ip.2011.34

Keywords

Search

Navigation