SPECIALIZED LEARNING AND POLITICAL POLARIZATION

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Yuksel, Sevgi
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Santa Barbara
• 刊物名称: INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0020-6598
• DOI: 10.1111/iere.12555
• 发表日期: 2022
• 页码: 457-474
• 关键词: electoral competition; public-goods; media; platforms; candidate; diversity; ELECTIONS; PARTIES; MODEL; BIAS

摘要

When citizens are differentiated by how much they care about different issues informing policy, specialization allows them to concentrate their learning on the issues that are most important to them. However, as different citizens focus on different issues, the electorate becomes less responsive to party platforms. In particular, equilibrium policies polarize more in fractionalized societies in which there is greater disagreement about which issues matter the most. When the learning technology allows for more specialization, it effectively transforms the society into a more fractionalized one without changing the underlying preferences of the electorate, thereby increasing polarization.