Tejas Prakash
Tracing the History of Polarization in Congress
Scholars and commentators argue that Congress is broken because both parties’ politicians take increasingly extreme positions on issues, failing to listen to voters. However, these claims are based on assuming that politicians of both parties don’t adjust which proposals they make as voters’ demands and the world change. In other words, many claims that politicians don’t listen to voters are based on the assumption that politicians don’t listen to voters. In this project, I will use a new methodology developed by Professor Broockman to measure how politicians’ positions have changed over time. The method requires present-day voters or politicians to express how they would have voted on legislation Congress voted on in the past. The project will involve collecting the details of historical legislation to form the survey questions in this survey.
Message To Sponsor
One of the things that's always bothered me about conversations around Congressional dysfunction is that a lot of the evidence just assumes the conclusion: politicians are polarized, therefore they don't listen to voters. Getting to actually test that with real data is something I didn't expect to have the chance to do this early. I'm really grateful that your support has made that possible."