2009/06/23 by Nolan McCarty, Keith T. Poole, Howard L. Rosenthal · 6 citations
Social Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Fiscal Policies and Political Economy #Judicial and Constitutional Studies
paper · doi:10.1111/j.1540-5907.2009.00393.x
openalex publication_date 2009/06/23 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25
Both pundits and scholars have blamed increasing levels of partisan conflict and polarization in Congress on the effects of partisan gerrymandering. We assess whether there is a strong causal relationship between congressional districting and polarization. We find very little evidence for such a link. First, we show that congressional polarization is primarily a function of the differences in how Democrats and Republicans represent the same districts rather than a function of which districts each party represents or the distribution of constituency preferences. Second, we conduct simulations to gauge the level of polarization under various “neutral” districting procedures. We find that the actual levels of polarization are not much higher than those produced by the simulations. We do find that gerrymandering has increased the Republican seat share in the House; however, this increase is not an important source of polarization.