Centrist by Comparison: Extremism and the Expansion of the Political Spectrum

Gabor Simonovits*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

While it is well understood that policy suggestions outside the range of mainstream debate are prevalent in various policy domains of American politics, their effects remain unexplored. In this paper, we suggest that proposing policies far from the political mainstream can re-structure voter perceptions of where alternatives lie in the ideological space. We provide support for this hypothesis using results from six survey experiments. We find that the introduction of extreme alternatives into the public discourse makes mainstream policies on the same side of the spectrum look more centrist in the public eye, thus increasing support for these moderate alternatives.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)157-175
Number of pages19
JournalPolitical Behavior
Volume39
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Mar 2017
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Extremism
  • Political psychology
  • Public opinion

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