Causes and Consequences of Polarization* 
Task Force on Negotiating Agreement in Politics
Michael Barber and Nolan McCarty

Conclusions
The negotiation failures resulting from polarization have done much to undermine governance in
the United States through gridlock and lower-quality legislation and by harming the functioning
of the executive and judicial branches. The Task Force on Negotiating Agreement in Politics was
tasked not only with rekindling scholarly interest in political negotiation and bargaining but also
with making concrete suggestions on how to improve the negotiation infrastructure in ways that
enhance good governance.

The central idea of this chapter is not only how badly the US Congress needs such medicine
but also how unwilling a patient it is likely to be. Partisan and ideological divisions in Congress
have grown significantly during the past three decades. Although the evidence suggests that the
average voter may not have polarized significantly, engaged and attentive voters now hold issue
positions that are more consistent with those of their party. Campaign funding from ideological
individuals has increased, whereas the media has contributed and adapted to the increased
ideological divisions.

These long-term trends have profound implications for successful negotiation. First,
polarization has fundamentally altered legislators’ incentives to negotiate. Expanding ideological
differences and declining dimensionality have increasingly replaced win-wins with zerosum outcomes. 
Increased teamsmanship has reduced the number of honest brokers who can
effectively work “across the aisles” to create agreements. Moreover, polarization has exacerbated
the incentives for strategic disagreement. It is difficult to negotiate when one or both sides think
they are better off when bargaining fails.

Polarization has also transformed congressional institutions. The “textbook” Congress
of decentralized committees has been replaced by a more partisan Congress, where much of
the negotiation occurs among party leaders. As Binder and Lee (see Chapter 3) point out, this
change may have an ambiguous effect. On the one hand, with their near-universal jurisdiction,
congressional leaders have more opportunities than committee chairs to form multi-issue
integrative solutions. On the other hand, leaders will continue to be constrained to the extent
that their members do not find such negotiated settlements politically advantageous.

Unfortunately, the existing political science literature suggests few opportunities for
reducing polarization by electoral reforms. The evidence undermines the common arguments
that reforming legislative districting or primary elections will materially reduce polarization.
Because reforming campaign finance has been fraught with constitutional difficulties and 
unintended consequences, it does not seem to be a promising avenue for reducing polarization in
the short run.

Given this dreary outlook, it is entirely appropriate that we turn our intellectual energies
to exploring ways to negotiate and govern despite growing partisan differences. A new political
science of negotiation that can suggest new mechanisms and protocols that help to “get the deal
done,” even in polarized times, would accomplish a great deal of good.

Task Force on Negotiating Agreement in Politics
* This piece was shaped profoundly by discussions of the American Working Group of the APSA Task Force on Negotiating Agreement in Politics. This group includes Andrea Campbell, Thomas Edsall, Morris Fiorina, Geoffrey Layman, James Leach, Frances Lee, Thomas Mann, Michael Minta, Eric Schickler, and Sophia Wallace. We also thank Chase Foster for his assistance with the Working Group

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