Diverging Parties: Social Change, Realignment, and Party Polarization

Party polarization in the House of Representatives has increased in recent decades. Explaining this development has been difficult, given current interpretations of American elections. The dominant framework for interpreting elections has been to see them as candidate-centered, or individualistic. This framework may have seemed appropriate as a way

Jeff Stonecash is professor and chair of the Department of Political Science at Syracuse University's Maxwell School. He is the author of Diverging Parties and Class and Party in American Politics. Mark D. Brewer is a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Government at Colby College. Mack Mariani is Director of Special Projects for the Monroe County Department of Communications and a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. Previously, he served as an aide to U.S. Representative Bill Paxon and a staff member for the Monroe County Legislature.