We Need New Ideas to Reduce Partisan Polarization

Lee Drutman wrote for Vox's Polyarchy about how the most commonly suggested solutions for political polarization will not work: 

Recently, I wrote a piece asking what would happen if we accepted the increasingly overwhelming evidence that “more public participation” can’t, by itself, save American democracy. The tentative conclusion was that we needed to think harder about how “intermediary institutions” (parties, politicians, interest groups) could do a better job of helping citizens to collectively realize their interests than they would be able to do individually.

Among political scientists, the favored intermediary institution is often “political parties.” Political parties, political scientists often reason, are mass popular organizations, whose existence and success depend on mobilizing large constituencies. Because they have to appeal to a majority of the electorate to win, this should, in theory, prevent them from becoming too extreme or unresponsive. In theory, parties should converge on the mythical “median voter,” a moderate, reasonable person.

The big problem with this theory is that it doesn’t match up with the evidence. Since the late 1970s, our two major political parties have grown further and further apart by every conceivable metric. They may mobilize large constituencies. But they have been doing so in ways that are pulling to extremes, not converging on the center.