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Asymmetric Politics: Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats
Why do Republican politicians promise to rein in government, only to face repeated rebellions from Republican voters and media critics for betraying their principles? Why do Democratic politicians propose an array of different policies to match the diversity of their supporters, only to become mired in stark demographic divisions over issue priorities? In short, why do the two parties act so differently-whether in the electorate, on the campaign trail, or in public office?
Asymmetric Politics offers a comprehensive explanation: The Republican Party is the vehicle of an ideological movement while the Democratic Party is a coalition of social groups. Republican leaders prize conservatism and attract support by pledging loyalty to broad values. Democratic leaders instead seek concrete government action, appealing to voters' group identities and interests by endorsing specific policies.
This fresh and comprehensive investigation reveals how Democrats and Republicans think differently about politics, rely on distinct sources of information, argue past one another, and pursue divergent goals in government. It provides a rigorous new understanding of contemporary polarization and governing dysfunction while demonstrating how longstanding features of American politics and public policy reflect our asymmetric party system.
Asymmetric Politics offers a comprehensive explanation: The Republican Party is the vehicle of an ideological movement while the Democratic Party is a coalition of social groups. Republican leaders prize conservatism and attract support by pledging loyalty to broad values. Democratic leaders instead seek concrete government action, appealing to voters' group identities and interests by endorsing specific policies.
This fresh and comprehensive investigation reveals how Democrats and Republicans think differently about politics, rely on distinct sources of information, argue past one another, and pursue divergent goals in government. It provides a rigorous new understanding of contemporary polarization and governing dysfunction while demonstrating how longstanding features of American politics and public policy reflect our asymmetric party system.
401 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 10, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
February 19, 2019
There are few topics that inspire more bloviating and less insight than the nature of American political parties. Writing on the subject is dominated by partisan jeremiads and social science that often amounts to little short of them. This book, however, makes a plausible argument that the two American parties are fundamentally different, while, in the most case, avoiding judgmental claims painting one or the other as misguided.
By analyzing everything from committee chairs' open statements in Congress, to party political platforms, to presidential addresses, to campaign ads, the authors show that time and again the Republican party tends to emphasize principles and ideology, while Democrats emphasize interest groups and policy proposals. This divergence actually mirrors the divergence of American society itself, which tends to be ideologically conservative in general, but favor many individual government policies in particular. He shows that, pace what the Republicans think, Democrats are not quasi-socialist ideologues, but an assemblage of groups demanding policies that work for their interests, such as African-Americans, union workers, environmentalists, women's rights activists, and so on. Democrats tend to have many more advocacy groups pushing their agenda in DC, tend to receive more endorsements from these groups in campaigns, and these groups tend to back the winner of such contests more often. Republicans, despite what Democrats may think, are not the party that works exclusively to support the wealthy and the white. In fact, Republicans tend to support ideological positions and candidates favoring limited government even if it occasionally works against their main interest groups. Their think tanks are smaller but more focused on overall ideology (like Heritage or AEI, instead of the Urban Institute, or the union-funded Economic Policy Institute for the Democrats), and their congressional caucuses are also smaller in number, but larger in percentage of the party's strength (the ideologically conservative Republican Study Committee had over 160 House members in 2016, while the largest Democratic group, the Progressive Caucus, had barely seventy, since many more Democrats were in identity-focused groups like the Congressional Black or Hispanic caucuses). In effect, both parties see the other as mirrors of themselves, when they are actually coming at politics from different, and differently legitimate, angles.
At the end of the book, the authors spend time discussing the supposed "radicalization" of the Republican party, which they see as resulting from its singular ideological focus and lack of interest in specific policy outcomes. They admit that, in general, the government's economic influence and liberal social policies have increased dramatically in the past decades, which makes it hard to understand against what baseline the modest rollbacks in government Republicans actually propose in practice is "radical," but they do make the case that ideologically consistency matters more to Republicans than concrete accomplishments. As they say, even this obstreperous ideological stance makes strategic sense, because almost all passed deals and policies, even by Republican Congresses and Presidents, tend to expand the scope of government, so slowing down the expansion by any means available is often the only thing they can hope for.
Overall, this book offers wonderful insights into the nature of American politics and policy. If it was better known, partisans on both sides would understand each other a little better, and not see their opponents as mere evil reciprocals of their own views.
By analyzing everything from committee chairs' open statements in Congress, to party political platforms, to presidential addresses, to campaign ads, the authors show that time and again the Republican party tends to emphasize principles and ideology, while Democrats emphasize interest groups and policy proposals. This divergence actually mirrors the divergence of American society itself, which tends to be ideologically conservative in general, but favor many individual government policies in particular. He shows that, pace what the Republicans think, Democrats are not quasi-socialist ideologues, but an assemblage of groups demanding policies that work for their interests, such as African-Americans, union workers, environmentalists, women's rights activists, and so on. Democrats tend to have many more advocacy groups pushing their agenda in DC, tend to receive more endorsements from these groups in campaigns, and these groups tend to back the winner of such contests more often. Republicans, despite what Democrats may think, are not the party that works exclusively to support the wealthy and the white. In fact, Republicans tend to support ideological positions and candidates favoring limited government even if it occasionally works against their main interest groups. Their think tanks are smaller but more focused on overall ideology (like Heritage or AEI, instead of the Urban Institute, or the union-funded Economic Policy Institute for the Democrats), and their congressional caucuses are also smaller in number, but larger in percentage of the party's strength (the ideologically conservative Republican Study Committee had over 160 House members in 2016, while the largest Democratic group, the Progressive Caucus, had barely seventy, since many more Democrats were in identity-focused groups like the Congressional Black or Hispanic caucuses). In effect, both parties see the other as mirrors of themselves, when they are actually coming at politics from different, and differently legitimate, angles.
At the end of the book, the authors spend time discussing the supposed "radicalization" of the Republican party, which they see as resulting from its singular ideological focus and lack of interest in specific policy outcomes. They admit that, in general, the government's economic influence and liberal social policies have increased dramatically in the past decades, which makes it hard to understand against what baseline the modest rollbacks in government Republicans actually propose in practice is "radical," but they do make the case that ideologically consistency matters more to Republicans than concrete accomplishments. As they say, even this obstreperous ideological stance makes strategic sense, because almost all passed deals and policies, even by Republican Congresses and Presidents, tend to expand the scope of government, so slowing down the expansion by any means available is often the only thing they can hope for.
Overall, this book offers wonderful insights into the nature of American politics and policy. If it was better known, partisans on both sides would understand each other a little better, and not see their opponents as mere evil reciprocals of their own views.
August 15, 2018
Best book on American politics that I have read since Bill Bishop's "The Big Sort." It is one of those rare books that, once you see how the authors frame the issue, a lot of disparate things start making sense.
Like most people, I used to see the Republican and Democratic parties symmetrically--similar in nature, with different political philosophies. The authors make a compelling case that the parties are in fact quite asymmetric. Republicans are a relatively homogeneous group attracted to the idea of limited government. Democrats are a much more heterogeneous group in which their principal political identity is a particular subgroup within the Democratic Party. The subgroup may be based on a particular issue or a demographic characteristic; but few Democrats identify with "liberalism" the way that Republicans identify with "conservatism."
This asymmetry combines with an internal inconsistency within the American electorate--as a group, we are conservative symbolically and liberal operationally. We embrace general principles associated with conservatism, but prefer liberal policies at a more granular level. Particular elements of the Affordable Care Act are much more popular than "Obamacare." The American people want an aggregate tax burden that supports about 2/3 of the policies that they want implemented. We like free markets in general and specific government interventions in particular. And so on.
Much follows from this basic framework. Because Republicans are much more ideologically oriented, things like right-wing talk radio and Fox News thrive; left-wing talk radio has never worked as a business model because political identity among Democrats is so dispersed; no particular faction is big enough to support a radio show or television network. Republicans are much more likely to nominate presidential candidates with strong ideological orientations--Goldwater, Reagan, Bush 43. Except for McGovern in 1972, Democrats tend to nominate those who can satisfy the many diverse interest groups in the party, and thus usually nominate less ideological candidates--Carter, B. Clinton, Kerry, Gore, H. Clinton. And McGovern's landslide loss occurred in part because he couldn't get the support of important Democratic interest groups (e.g., labor unions) in the general election. Democrats seem to have a harder time unifying around their nominee, because the party itself is not defined by a central set of ideas or principles around which the party can rally.
Political speeches at conventions and the State of the Union address also reflect this asymmetry. Republicans focus on values and general principles; Democrats go down their list of specific policies, designed to reach out to each and every interest group that the Democratic Party comprises.
The electorate's preference for Republican general principles and Democratic particular policies is a primary cause of our dysfunctional political system.
The authors support their views with a lot of data.
Well worth reading to better understand how the parties campaign and govern in very different ways.
Like most people, I used to see the Republican and Democratic parties symmetrically--similar in nature, with different political philosophies. The authors make a compelling case that the parties are in fact quite asymmetric. Republicans are a relatively homogeneous group attracted to the idea of limited government. Democrats are a much more heterogeneous group in which their principal political identity is a particular subgroup within the Democratic Party. The subgroup may be based on a particular issue or a demographic characteristic; but few Democrats identify with "liberalism" the way that Republicans identify with "conservatism."
This asymmetry combines with an internal inconsistency within the American electorate--as a group, we are conservative symbolically and liberal operationally. We embrace general principles associated with conservatism, but prefer liberal policies at a more granular level. Particular elements of the Affordable Care Act are much more popular than "Obamacare." The American people want an aggregate tax burden that supports about 2/3 of the policies that they want implemented. We like free markets in general and specific government interventions in particular. And so on.
Much follows from this basic framework. Because Republicans are much more ideologically oriented, things like right-wing talk radio and Fox News thrive; left-wing talk radio has never worked as a business model because political identity among Democrats is so dispersed; no particular faction is big enough to support a radio show or television network. Republicans are much more likely to nominate presidential candidates with strong ideological orientations--Goldwater, Reagan, Bush 43. Except for McGovern in 1972, Democrats tend to nominate those who can satisfy the many diverse interest groups in the party, and thus usually nominate less ideological candidates--Carter, B. Clinton, Kerry, Gore, H. Clinton. And McGovern's landslide loss occurred in part because he couldn't get the support of important Democratic interest groups (e.g., labor unions) in the general election. Democrats seem to have a harder time unifying around their nominee, because the party itself is not defined by a central set of ideas or principles around which the party can rally.
Political speeches at conventions and the State of the Union address also reflect this asymmetry. Republicans focus on values and general principles; Democrats go down their list of specific policies, designed to reach out to each and every interest group that the Democratic Party comprises.
The electorate's preference for Republican general principles and Democratic particular policies is a primary cause of our dysfunctional political system.
The authors support their views with a lot of data.
Well worth reading to better understand how the parties campaign and govern in very different ways.
March 18, 2018
To be honest, I couldn't work my way through this book and I'm not quite sure why. I'm as much of a politics junkie as anyone, but I found the structure of the arguments curiously opaque (in other words, I struggled to put each paragraph in context, and that got wearing after two or three hours of slogging). Part of this probably comes from having read the book AFTER Donald Trump took over the Republican party, and after "Fake News" became the phrase of the day, but I think also this book is rooted in old-style "left-right" or "liberal-conservative" thinking. I think the book would have benefited from a more pragmatic understanding of ideology and a closer look at the issue space rather than reduction to the left-right scale of old-style political science. For example, saying that deficit reduction is an ideological stance may not hold up in the "Trump Republican" world (I'm not sure what ideology does hold up there). I think "Populism" needs more attention as a concept as well, given the dramatic increase in that ideology over the last couple of years in America and Europe. And what about the newer approach to understanding ideology promoted by European-influenced thinkers, such as "open-closed" politics? Not even a hint of that here.
Finally, I think the book shows little in the way of serious theoretical understanding of the actual structure of party politics, despite the large amount of data and text surrounding that. I had a lot of trouble understanding the theoretical framework in which the book operates, and there were very few models of political process into which empirical data could be pressed; as a result, I could not process their arguments within a structure that would get it to make coherent sense.
Finally, I think the book shows little in the way of serious theoretical understanding of the actual structure of party politics, despite the large amount of data and text surrounding that. I had a lot of trouble understanding the theoretical framework in which the book operates, and there were very few models of political process into which empirical data could be pressed; as a result, I could not process their arguments within a structure that would get it to make coherent sense.
February 25, 2025
Excellent book with a straightforward thesis backed by a lot of empirical evidence across different categories. The book's tone and perspective are also relatively value-neutral, if academic and dry.
The main argument is that Democrats and Republicans are two entirely different parties in political philosophy, even if the positions on specific policies are not that different between voters. Democrats are a big-tent party, where election and legislative strategy is built around a coalition of single-issue interest groups (e.g. various civil rights groups, environmentalism, consumer protection, etc.). Republicans are more homogenous (relatively) and its election strategy is driven by ideology, where ideology is defined to adherence to traditional American values: small government, personal liberties, property rights, etc.
The way the two parties legislate once voted into power is directly influenced by the party organization. The Democratic party has built a machinery, especially within the House (via committees), to analyze problems that single-issue interest groups surfaced and propose solutions via legislation. There is no overarching ideology, like socialism or liberalism. Rather, the momentum is pushed forward by this institutional machinery of problem-solving vis-a-vis constituent groups and legislating solutions. We'll come back to this machinery in a moment.
In comparison, the Republicans win elections by focusing on big-picture values. This makes governance difficult because the moment that elected Republicans work with "the system," they become part of the establishment. Republicans are much more likely to lose incumbent elections to new competitors because by working with the establishment Republicans have already diluted their ideological purity. Therefore new competitors can claim their own purity against a history of compromise amongst the incumbents, leading to instability in leadership. Democrats are much less likely to get replaced by a competitor within the party due to ideological impurity - some of the most successful Democrats (Clinton and Obama) in fact broke ideological ranks often, without consequence as far as electability.
Therefore, it pays for Republicans to work against the establishment. It pays for them to put the machinery of government on pause. And, because there is a systemic replacement of Republican leadership with more "ideologically pure" candidates, the Republican platform becomes more and more "extreme" vis-a-vis the system of government in the US as it exists today.
Let's come back to that system of government, specifically to the aforementioned machinery of problem surfacing, analyzing, and resolving via committees, neutral bureaucracy, and congressional legislation. All that was first put in place in the post-New Deal era, when we were building the Great Society. This is the great period of technocratic rule in the United States. It's this machinery that modern Republican activists want to dismantle.
The authors are very fair in noting that the inconvenient truth is that secularly this political machinery, along with other institutions that support it - like research institutions (private research organizations, universities, etc.) - have become increasingly liberal. This includes the bureaucracy. Because Republican political leaders are much less likely to add value to the establishment, they forfeit the privilege of adding conservative-leading bureaucrats to the system. They are also very unlikely to make sweeping changes to the system because this usually costs them electability in the general elections, by reducing benefits to specific voting blocs, despite becoming vulnerable to the charge of ideological impurity (thus their eventual replacement to an insurgent who is more radical).
And so the Republican party has spent the past 70+ years building alternative institutions. This includes alternative media, something which predates the internet. We blame social media for polarization, but the trend was already there before the internet became what it is today. Before we had right-wing news platforms on the internet, we had talk radio which was dominated by "far-right" conservatives. The right also created independent think tanks, like Heritage and Cato. In other words, the trend towards a conservative information bubble is not specific to the internet and was motivated by the secular "liberalization" of bureaucracy, academia, and mainstream media.
The two parties therefore have two completely different views on how government should work. And, the Republican perception that bureaucracy does not work within guardrails defined by abstract American values is true. So is the Republican perception of left-wing bias in government, academia, and the media. The asymmetry also causes the Democrats to misdiagnose the conservative resistance to their platform. Democrats see politics as related to group interests, and so Republican foot-dragging must therefore be a group interest problem as well - the group of racist whites or old white men or whatever. The reality is that Republicans are more diverse than that, just unified by ideology. That ideology has also pulled former Democrats into the Republican orbit because up to around the 1990s the Democratic party had a healthier mix of liberal and conservative (mostly southern conservatives and northern Catholics) constituents; conservative constituents have been defecting to the Republicans.
None of this is to say that the Democratic way of governing is bad. And it's not to say the Republican way of governing is bad. It's just to say that one is driven by practical policy-making driven by interest groups, the other has few policy proposals and is ideological in nature. And that the way the political system as set up today makes a progressively radicalized clash between the two sides more likely.
The main argument is that Democrats and Republicans are two entirely different parties in political philosophy, even if the positions on specific policies are not that different between voters. Democrats are a big-tent party, where election and legislative strategy is built around a coalition of single-issue interest groups (e.g. various civil rights groups, environmentalism, consumer protection, etc.). Republicans are more homogenous (relatively) and its election strategy is driven by ideology, where ideology is defined to adherence to traditional American values: small government, personal liberties, property rights, etc.
The way the two parties legislate once voted into power is directly influenced by the party organization. The Democratic party has built a machinery, especially within the House (via committees), to analyze problems that single-issue interest groups surfaced and propose solutions via legislation. There is no overarching ideology, like socialism or liberalism. Rather, the momentum is pushed forward by this institutional machinery of problem-solving vis-a-vis constituent groups and legislating solutions. We'll come back to this machinery in a moment.
In comparison, the Republicans win elections by focusing on big-picture values. This makes governance difficult because the moment that elected Republicans work with "the system," they become part of the establishment. Republicans are much more likely to lose incumbent elections to new competitors because by working with the establishment Republicans have already diluted their ideological purity. Therefore new competitors can claim their own purity against a history of compromise amongst the incumbents, leading to instability in leadership. Democrats are much less likely to get replaced by a competitor within the party due to ideological impurity - some of the most successful Democrats (Clinton and Obama) in fact broke ideological ranks often, without consequence as far as electability.
Therefore, it pays for Republicans to work against the establishment. It pays for them to put the machinery of government on pause. And, because there is a systemic replacement of Republican leadership with more "ideologically pure" candidates, the Republican platform becomes more and more "extreme" vis-a-vis the system of government in the US as it exists today.
Let's come back to that system of government, specifically to the aforementioned machinery of problem surfacing, analyzing, and resolving via committees, neutral bureaucracy, and congressional legislation. All that was first put in place in the post-New Deal era, when we were building the Great Society. This is the great period of technocratic rule in the United States. It's this machinery that modern Republican activists want to dismantle.
The authors are very fair in noting that the inconvenient truth is that secularly this political machinery, along with other institutions that support it - like research institutions (private research organizations, universities, etc.) - have become increasingly liberal. This includes the bureaucracy. Because Republican political leaders are much less likely to add value to the establishment, they forfeit the privilege of adding conservative-leading bureaucrats to the system. They are also very unlikely to make sweeping changes to the system because this usually costs them electability in the general elections, by reducing benefits to specific voting blocs, despite becoming vulnerable to the charge of ideological impurity (thus their eventual replacement to an insurgent who is more radical).
And so the Republican party has spent the past 70+ years building alternative institutions. This includes alternative media, something which predates the internet. We blame social media for polarization, but the trend was already there before the internet became what it is today. Before we had right-wing news platforms on the internet, we had talk radio which was dominated by "far-right" conservatives. The right also created independent think tanks, like Heritage and Cato. In other words, the trend towards a conservative information bubble is not specific to the internet and was motivated by the secular "liberalization" of bureaucracy, academia, and mainstream media.
The two parties therefore have two completely different views on how government should work. And, the Republican perception that bureaucracy does not work within guardrails defined by abstract American values is true. So is the Republican perception of left-wing bias in government, academia, and the media. The asymmetry also causes the Democrats to misdiagnose the conservative resistance to their platform. Democrats see politics as related to group interests, and so Republican foot-dragging must therefore be a group interest problem as well - the group of racist whites or old white men or whatever. The reality is that Republicans are more diverse than that, just unified by ideology. That ideology has also pulled former Democrats into the Republican orbit because up to around the 1990s the Democratic party had a healthier mix of liberal and conservative (mostly southern conservatives and northern Catholics) constituents; conservative constituents have been defecting to the Republicans.
None of this is to say that the Democratic way of governing is bad. And it's not to say the Republican way of governing is bad. It's just to say that one is driven by practical policy-making driven by interest groups, the other has few policy proposals and is ideological in nature. And that the way the political system as set up today makes a progressively radicalized clash between the two sides more likely.
April 26, 2019
Very well done. The authors accumulate reams of evidence in defense of a few stylized facts. I found the idea that Americans like liberal policies but are philosophically conservative particularly illuminating. This one idea explains so much of the dysfunction in U.S. federal governance that bemuses this Canadian. For an academic book, it is also not too dry, which was appreciated.
One minor criticism is that the book didn't look at the Gerrymandering many Republican-controlled state legislatures achieved from 2010 until the present, and whether that has had an impact on how the electorate's pretences are reflected in government. I also would have liked a bit more analysis on the south and whether voter preferences show a different pattern there.
One minor criticism is that the book didn't look at the Gerrymandering many Republican-controlled state legislatures achieved from 2010 until the present, and whether that has had an impact on how the electorate's pretences are reflected in government. I also would have liked a bit more analysis on the south and whether voter preferences show a different pattern there.
May 4, 2017
A very good explanation of party asymmetry in the American electorate and party system
January 30, 2018
A solid, interesting, remarkably centered take on the state of politics in the United States in the 21st century.
April 21, 2018
Uses the word "disproportionately" several dozen times.
September 16, 2022
a little repetitive but definitely right
September 9, 2025
Really good primer on both parties views and how they approach all political aspects differently
December 3, 2016
Not much new here but an important read for our time.
August 10, 2025
How we “talk past one another” when we fail to look at the ideas that motivate American political actors.
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October 31, 2018L&P 18a31金 Matt Grossmann ‘Asymmetric Politics- Ideological Rs & Group Interest Ds’ D's Policy Making R's Patriotic for 0.01% .26 Polarized, Exaggerated, Hyperbolic, Thermostatic Public Opinion & RT-LT Divergence .35 Sayu Bhojwani ‘People Like Us’ Dog Whistling, Suppressed Votes v Diverse Candidates=====%#
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