David Brady and Morris Fiorina discuss Polarization in America.
Hoover senior fellow Morris Fiorina examines the myth of a polarized America with Hoover deputy director David Brady.
The general public is often portrayed as bitterly divided on social, political, and economic issues, but new research shows that most Americans stand in the middle of the political landscape, preferring centrist candidates and holding moderate positions on charged cultural issues. It is the political parties and the media that have ignored this fact and distorted public perceptions- The Hoover Institution
Bio
David Brady
David Brady is deputy director and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is also the Bowen H. and Janice Arthur McCoy Professor of Political Science and Leadership Values in the Stanford Graduate School of Business and professor of political science in the School of Humanities and Sciences at the university.
Brady is an expert on the U.S. Congress and congressional decision making. His current research focuses on the political history of the U.S. Congress, the history of U.S. election results, and public policy processes in general.
Morris P. Fiorina
Morris P. Fiorina is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the Wendt Family Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. Formerly he was the Frank Thompson Professor of Government at Harvard University, where he taught from 1982-1998. From 1972-1982 he taught at the California Institute of Technology.
Professor Fiorina's research focuses on legislative and electoral processes with particular emphasis on the ways in which political institutions and procedures facilitate or distort the representation of citizen preferences.
He has just published Culture War: The Myth of a Polarized America with Samuel J. Abrams and Jeremy C. Pope (Pearson Longman, 2004).