Polarization, Conditional Party Governance and State Capacity in American States

• In Event: Parties and Polarization across the United States

Abstract

Polarization has been linked to a multitude of negative outcomes, but this literature has not yet broached American states' state capacity. Do polarized state legislatures build state capacity or not? This study examines the effect of partisan ideological polarization and of conditional party government on states' levels of state capacity using a panel dataset from 2001-2020.

Aldrich and Rohde's theory of conditional party government requires two key conditions to be met. First, members of a majority political party should have homogeneous preferences; second, preferences between majority and minority parties should be different and separate from each other -- the legislature should be polarized along party lines, and each party should be ideologically homogeneous. As these conditions are increasingly met, party leadership is able to consolidate more power and resources, leading the majority party to impose its legislative policy agenda. We test the effect of conditional party governance and the ideological polarization of state legislatures on state capacity building. Analyzing the 50 states over a 20-year period, we find that, in general, states that are more polarized and increasingly satisfy the conditional party government criteria build greater capacity. We then test whether the effects on capacity differ depending on Democratic versus Republican control of the legislature. Whereas liberalism has been associated with a desire for a greater role of the state (and therefore requires capacity-building), conservatism is associated with a more minimal role of the state and should encourage less investment in state capacity. We find that the relationship is contingent on state-level democracy. Our work contributes to theories of political parties, Legislative structure, and the political determinants of state capacity.

Authors

• Hannah Ridge, Chapman University

• Joshua Yoshio Lerner, NORC at the University of Chicago

• Kiran Rose Auerbach, University of Zurich