The last few years have seen a clear and destructive polarization of politics.  It’s a trend that has been visible across the world, but nowhere more so than in the United States, where the Republicans and Democrats now scarcely agree on anything, and politics in the country has become largely dysfunctional as a result.

Studies of Congressional voting patterns highlight the polarized nature of American politics today, not only due to the growing likelihood that politicians vote along party lines, but also that those party lines are drifting further apart.  This is despite voters largely staying in the middle during this period, often expressing a preference for moderate positions to those on either extreme.

New research from the Santa Fe Institute aims to find out why this is.  The model features a model that the researchers believe accurately describes why politics has become so polarized despite voters remaining moderate.

Good enough

Central to the model is the notion of “satisficing,” which describes how people will settle for a candidate that is close enough to their ideals, rather than necessarily the best candidate.  Once you take that assumption, then the polarization becomes a lot easier to understand.

The most common model in politics was developed in the 1950s by economist Anthony Downs.  It assumes that everyone votes for the candidate that is closest to them ideologically.  It’s a logical approach, but it’s an approach that would assume that political parties would naturally drift towards the center, which isn’t what is happening.

The Santa Fe team took a different approach with their model, and determined that if a voter is satisfied with one of the candidates, then that candidate gets their vote, but if they’re satisfied with both candidates, the vote is randomly assigned.  If they’re not satisfied with either candidate, they don’t vote at all.

When the model was tested, it showed that sticking to purely party lines can be a winning strategy, with political parties increasing their chances of winning votes when they place their ideological stake further from the center ground.  It’s a finding the researchers believe helps to explain why people appear so keen to identify with divided political groups, even when those parties don’t really represent the opinions of its members.

The researchers accept that it’s not a complete picture of why politics is becoming more polarized than ever before, but believe it provides a useful insight to help explain some of the factors at play.