Causes of Ideological Polarization in the US, 2009-2019

Student: Fedotov Nikita

Educational Programme: Politics. Economics. Philosophy (Master)

Final Grade: 7

Year of Graduation: 2020

In this paper we provide a qualitative assessment of the mass polarization of the American electorate under the Trump's presidency. In our research we try to prove that populism, which is the basis of Trump's agenda, significantly changed the character of polarization in the American society. With the use of the empirical data we demonstrate that the Trump's presidency lead to significant party sorting of the independent voters. This data also demonstrates that populism brings significant social hostility between the partisan groups, thus decreasing mutual trust and incentives for compromise, which may undermine democracy.

Full text (added May 25, 2020)

Student Theses at HSE must be completed in accordance with the University Rules and regulations specified by each educational programme.

Summaries of all theses must be published and made freely available on the HSE website.

The full text of a thesis can be published in open access on the HSE website only if the authoring student (copyright holder) agrees, or, if the thesis was written by a team of students, if all the co-authors (copyright holders) agree. After a thesis is published on the HSE website, it obtains the status of an online publication.

Student theses are objects of copyright and their use is subject to limitations in accordance with the Russian Federation’s law on intellectual property.

In the event that a thesis is quoted or otherwise used, reference to the author’s name and the source of quotation is required.

Search all student theses