What do you think?
Rate this book
Red and Blue Nation?: Characteristics and Causes of America's Polarized Politics
"
Analysts and pundits increasingly perceive a widening gulf between ""red states"" and ""blue states."" Yet the research to support that perception is scattered and sometimes difficult to parse. America's polarized politics, it is said, poses fundamental dangers for democratic and accountable government. Heightened partisanship is thought to degrade deliberation in Congress and threaten the integrity of other institutions, from the courts to the media. But, how deep do the country's political divisions actually run? Are they truly wreaking havoc upon the social fabric? Has America become a house divided? This important new book, Red and Blue Nation?, gets to the bottom of this perplexing issue. The first of two volumes cosponsored by Brookings and the Hoover Institution carefully considers the extent to which polarized views among political leaders and activists are reflected in the population at large. It pays particular attention to factors such as the increased influence of religion and the changing nature of the media. The authors show that while the severity of the country's ""culture wars"" is often overstated, significant fissures have opened. In Red and Blue Nation? leading journalists and scholars combine their different insights to enrich our understanding of the issue, offering thoughtful analyses of the underlying problems. This comprehensive and accessible discussion of the polarization debate will be an essential resource for policymakers, scholars, and anyone interested in the health of American public discourse. Contributors include Alan I. Abramowitz (Emory University), David W. Brady (Hoover Institution), Peter Beinart (The New Republic), Sarah A. Binder (Brookings Institution), James Campbell (State University of New York at Buffalo), Carl Cannon (National Journal), E.J. Dionne, Jr. (Brookings Institution), Gregg Easterbrook (Brookings Institution), Thomas B. Edsall (Washington Post), Morris P. Fiorina (Hoover Institution), William A. Galston (Brookings Institution), Hahrie C. Han (Wellesley College), Gary C. Jacobson (University of California, San Diego), Andrew Kohut (Pew Research Center for The People & The Press), Matthew Levendusky (Stanford University), Thomas E. Mann (Brookings Institution), Diana C. Mutz (University of Pennsylvania), Pietro S. Nivola (Brookings Institution), Tom Rosenstiel (Project for Excellence in Journalism), and Alan Wolfe (Boston College).
"
Analysts and pundits increasingly perceive a widening gulf between ""red states"" and ""blue states."" Yet the research to support that perception is scattered and sometimes difficult to parse. America's polarized politics, it is said, poses fundamental dangers for democratic and accountable government. Heightened partisanship is thought to degrade deliberation in Congress and threaten the integrity of other institutions, from the courts to the media. But, how deep do the country's political divisions actually run? Are they truly wreaking havoc upon the social fabric? Has America become a house divided? This important new book, Red and Blue Nation?, gets to the bottom of this perplexing issue. The first of two volumes cosponsored by Brookings and the Hoover Institution carefully considers the extent to which polarized views among political leaders and activists are reflected in the population at large. It pays particular attention to factors such as the increased influence of religion and the changing nature of the media. The authors show that while the severity of the country's ""culture wars"" is often overstated, significant fissures have opened. In Red and Blue Nation? leading journalists and scholars combine their different insights to enrich our understanding of the issue, offering thoughtful analyses of the underlying problems. This comprehensive and accessible discussion of the polarization debate will be an essential resource for policymakers, scholars, and anyone interested in the health of American public discourse. Contributors include Alan I. Abramowitz (Emory University), David W. Brady (Hoover Institution), Peter Beinart (The New Republic), Sarah A. Binder (Brookings Institution), James Campbell (State University of New York at Buffalo), Carl Cannon (National Journal), E.J. Dionne, Jr. (Brookings Institution), Gregg Easterbrook (Brookings Institution), Thomas B. Edsall (Washington Post), Morris P. Fiorina (Hoover Institution), William A. Galston (Brookings Institution), Hahrie C. Han (Wellesley College), Gary C. Jacobson (University of California, San Diego), Andrew Kohut (Pew Research Center for The People & The Press), Matthew Levendusky (Stanford University), Thomas E. Mann (Brookings Institution), Diana C. Mutz (University of Pennsylvania), Pietro S. Nivola (Brookings Institution), Tom Rosenstiel (Project for Excellence in Journalism), and Alan Wolfe (Boston College).
"
- GenresNonfictionResearch
334 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
25 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
Read
November 3, 2025The book is made up of a collection of mostly short (~10-20pg. each) essays written by top academics in political science, with the essays grouped into different sections (ex: on the role of media, gerrymandering, the extent of polarization generally, etc).
Each essay is a response to the previous ones in the section, and the writers occasionally reference prior and even upcoming sections to support or elaborate on their own perspective. It's clear the Brookings and Hoover Institutions had the authors read the essays leading up to their own prior to writing a new section, which has the effect of creating a cumulative sense of causal synthesis as the book goes on. This is maybe my favorite element of the book.
An initial conflict over whether America is even meaningfully more polarized in the first place continually mediates itself in the background as future sections hone in on more detail-oriented, narrow causal factors in polarization. The book matures from a laying-down of (and dispute over) basic terminology, to a conversation over the general scale of polarization, to somewhat simplistic, divergent accounts of polarization, to a many-sided, reciprocal, systems-based causal account of polarization in America grounded in historical perspective.
This book is very true, in the sense that it takes many partial truths and ties them together to create an account that explains much of the topic at hand. Its greatest flaw is also what makes this a good book: it's an interaction of the perspectives of top political scientists. The interaction of perspectives, their synthesizing motions and eventual many-sided causal account, is great, but it all takes place within the expertise of political science, which is not the same thing as the study of the real world. While deeply human and careful at moments, the biggest hole in this account is its lack of outside, especially economic, analysis.
Even if certain writers like Brady and Han, and especially EJ Dionne Jr., nod toward or entertain its importance, a more comprehensive economic analysis is treated as an "alternative view, popular on the left" (pg.192); one that's increasingly outdated as upper-middle class social interests become the 'true' force in politics. Still, Dionne Jr. references economic analysis of political strategy enough that curious readers are provided with later studying materials to better understand that framework of analysis. (The book is a bit better at providing some historical perspective, even if that's also deficient in economic elements.)
This book is also very good at showing how many political 'scientists' are actually mostly interested in telling a story by framing already-flawed data in favor of a tempting thesis. At moments, especially early on, this book is a sophistic competition of appearance where the winner is whoever gets to show the last graph or data table, but this flawed approach to political science is mostly set straight as more writers come in and move on, synthesizing the partial truths the two sides were earlier arguing more simplistically.
This book isn't very entertaining in the popular sense of the word—it's mostly just partial truths interacting with each other—which is probably why it's not very popular or well-regarded, despite ending up a great analysis and rewarding read for those who care.
And even if the political science perspective is incomplete, it is undoubtedly the dominant force in popular debate and media (and the typical perspective among the elite) which makes it a layer above 'incomplete truth', which is itself a layer above pure illusion. The fact that so many people look at it this way, including many politicians, gives it a power that is not entirely unlike truth.
Each essay is a response to the previous ones in the section, and the writers occasionally reference prior and even upcoming sections to support or elaborate on their own perspective. It's clear the Brookings and Hoover Institutions had the authors read the essays leading up to their own prior to writing a new section, which has the effect of creating a cumulative sense of causal synthesis as the book goes on. This is maybe my favorite element of the book.
An initial conflict over whether America is even meaningfully more polarized in the first place continually mediates itself in the background as future sections hone in on more detail-oriented, narrow causal factors in polarization. The book matures from a laying-down of (and dispute over) basic terminology, to a conversation over the general scale of polarization, to somewhat simplistic, divergent accounts of polarization, to a many-sided, reciprocal, systems-based causal account of polarization in America grounded in historical perspective.
This book is very true, in the sense that it takes many partial truths and ties them together to create an account that explains much of the topic at hand. Its greatest flaw is also what makes this a good book: it's an interaction of the perspectives of top political scientists. The interaction of perspectives, their synthesizing motions and eventual many-sided causal account, is great, but it all takes place within the expertise of political science, which is not the same thing as the study of the real world. While deeply human and careful at moments, the biggest hole in this account is its lack of outside, especially economic, analysis.
Even if certain writers like Brady and Han, and especially EJ Dionne Jr., nod toward or entertain its importance, a more comprehensive economic analysis is treated as an "alternative view, popular on the left" (pg.192); one that's increasingly outdated as upper-middle class social interests become the 'true' force in politics. Still, Dionne Jr. references economic analysis of political strategy enough that curious readers are provided with later studying materials to better understand that framework of analysis. (The book is a bit better at providing some historical perspective, even if that's also deficient in economic elements.)
This book is also very good at showing how many political 'scientists' are actually mostly interested in telling a story by framing already-flawed data in favor of a tempting thesis. At moments, especially early on, this book is a sophistic competition of appearance where the winner is whoever gets to show the last graph or data table, but this flawed approach to political science is mostly set straight as more writers come in and move on, synthesizing the partial truths the two sides were earlier arguing more simplistically.
This book isn't very entertaining in the popular sense of the word—it's mostly just partial truths interacting with each other—which is probably why it's not very popular or well-regarded, despite ending up a great analysis and rewarding read for those who care.
And even if the political science perspective is incomplete, it is undoubtedly the dominant force in popular debate and media (and the typical perspective among the elite) which makes it a layer above 'incomplete truth', which is itself a layer above pure illusion. The fact that so many people look at it this way, including many politicians, gives it a power that is not entirely unlike truth.
Displaying 1 of 1 review