By Donald Low

What explains political polarisation in the US… and what lessons does it hold for Singapore?

At a recent PAP event, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong argued that Singapore could not afford to go down the path of countries like the United States, where most states clearly belonged to either the Democrat or Republican camp. “If Singapore had a blue constituency and a red constituency, I think Singapore will be in trouble,” PM was quoted as saying (see here: S’pore can’t go down ‘red vs blue’ path: PM Lee).

PM’s concerns about the risks of Singapore becoming more politically polarised aren’t new. Since the 2011 general election, he has made various statements reflecting his worry that Singapore might become politically polarised, even ungovernable, if the government is not able to forge a consensus in a more diverse and pluralistic society. So it is perhaps not surprising that he would highlight American democracy as an example of a dysfunctional political system we should strive to avoid. After all, it is commonly observed that the US government is gridlocked and that this gridlock is a result of the increasing polarisation of American politics.

But while PM’s example of American politics is salient, is his description of the US as being rigidly and ideologically divided into blue and red states accurate? His remarks reported in the local media suggest that individual American states are immutably Democratic or Republican, and that elected officials serve only narrow party interests because the people who voted them identify themselves clearly as Republicans or Democrats. Consequently, there is little point for politicians to appeal to the middle ground which, according to the belief that the US is unusually divided and polarised, has been largely hollowed out.

There is good reason to be sceptical of this view of US politics. For one, it goes against the grain of one of the most influential theories in political science, the Median Voter Theorem, which predicts that political parties would move towards the ideological centre to capture as many votes as possible.

PM Lee’s comments also reflect a common misdiagnosis of the nature of American polarisation. This matters because while the risks of political polarisation in Singapore are real, we should be clear about what the likely causes of polarisation are. The US experience is relevant for Singapore, but not for the reasons the PM has cited. In misdiagnosing and caricaturising the American democratic system, we risk drawing the wrong lessons about its strengths and vulnerabilities.

First, among political scientists in the US, there is little agreement that the American masses are polarised. Focusing on the simple “red state-blue state” divide, although convenient and consistent with the polarisation story, masks a great deal of variation within states. Highly urbanised areas in otherwise red states tend to vote Democrats. Even neighbouring counties in the same city may vote differently (see for instance this). Neither is it the case that America’s political divides simply mirror income differences – with the poor voting Democrat and the rich voting Republican. For instance, Asian-Americans are a relatively affluent group, but they went for President Obama by 3 to 1. White males in the South are much poorer but they overwhelmingly voted for Romney. But while there is little agreement that American voters are polarised and divided, there is broad consensus that American elites and politicians are ideologically divided and cause gridlock. I will return to why America’s elites are polarised later in this essay.

Second, even if one accepts the simplistic red state-blue state divide, there is little evidence to support the observation that individual states are immutably Democratic or Republican. Take a look at the table below. It shows how the twelve most populous states in the US (which together account for more than half of the total electoral colleges) have voted in the last ten Presidential Elections. There is not a single state among the twelve that has voted for the same party in all of the last ten elections. Only one, Texas, has voted for the same party (Republican) nine out of ten times. But even Texas, which is considered a Republican stronghold, was safely Democratic until the passage of Civil Rights legislation in the late 1960s. And with immigration and demographic change, who can predict that Texas will not switch in elections in the not-too-distant future?

Third, how a state votes in Presidential Elections often does not predict how it would vote in gubernatorial elections. The last column of the table shows the current governors of the twelve states. It shows that six of them (or half) voted governors of a different political party from the Presidential candidate of their choice. Even New York and California, which most people would assume to be strongly Democratic now, have had long-serving Republican governors in their recent pasts. Again, far from presenting a uniform picture of rigid ideological polarisation, the evidence suggests that voters are mostly pragmatic rather than ideological, and that they select candidates from both political parties who best represent their interests at different levels of government.

So it is not apparent at all that American voters are polarised.  Indeed, for a large country, the range of respectable political opinion in the US is quite narrow. Students of American politics are often struck by how unusually “right” the centre of gravity in US politics is. There is no Democratic politician who would dare to be tainted with the label “Socialist” or even “liberal”. Few, if any, politicians dare to propose the nationalisation of healthcare along the lines seen in many European countries or Canada. The appetite for regulating the market and big businesses, for higher taxes, and for more redistributive policies is generally much more muted in the US than it is in other western democracies. One can find a wider range of political opinion in say Britain or Sweden than in the US. (For readers interested in why American politics is so unusually right, I highly recommend John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge’s The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America, Penguin Press, 2005.)

If it is unlikely that American politics is polarised and gridlocked because American voters are deeply divided along ideological lines, what then is the real cause of the country’s political polarisation in recent years? Many political scientists have argued that America’s political dysfunctions have more to do with its polarised elites. This, is turn, reflects extreme inequality and the rise of the super-rich, the influence of lobby groups, the role of partisan media organisations, and the gerrymandering of Congressional districts.

Rising inequality, while a global phenomenon, is the most extreme in the US. In 1979, the top 1% in the US earned 9% of its income; today the richest 1% account for a quarter of the country’s income. In 2010, more than 90% of the country’s income gains went to the top 1%. In the context of such extreme income and wealth inequalities, it is hardly surprising that politics would become dysfunctional and divisive. Trickle-down economics is hardly conducive for the development of a moderate, centrist, consensus-seeking democratic system.

Add the influence of lobby groups funded by powerful industries such as financial services, energy and pharmaceuticals into the toxic mix and you have the perfect recipe for government paralysis and inaction on the most pressing issues America faces: inequality, climate change and reform of the healthcare system.

Partisan news organisations such as Fox News have also been identified as a source of elite polarisation in the US. They perpetuate bias, encourage extreme political views (most obviously on the right), and create an “echo chamber” for the faithful who seek comfort and confirmation of their political views.

Finally, gerrymandering has led to a Congress that is more polarised and incapable of working across party lines. In the US, congressional districts (which elect Congressmen) are determined by state legislatures rather than an independent body. Because state legislatures are usually controlled by a single party, Congressional districts have increasingly been zoned in a way that maximises the number of “safe” House seats.

How does this explain polarisation? The reason is that although extremism hurts candidates among “swing” voters, it is much less of a worry in the safe districts. According to some estimates, such safe seats are about 85% of all Congressional seats. In other words, because of gerrymandering, most Congressional seats are not very competitive. The less competitive a district, the more the party primary to select its candidate to contest for that seat becomes the “real” election. And since party primaries are won by targeting the party’s median voter – who is naturally closer to the partisan extreme than the median voter of the entire district – gerrymandering has led to ever more extreme and partisan candidates for Congress. It is little surprise then that the American Congress hasn’t been able to work across party lines in recent years. Again, notice how it is not that American voters are divided which explains the paralysis and gridlock of Congress. It is gerrymandering and the consequently uncompetitive elections in “safe” House districts which are the real sources of polarisation and gridlock.

The lesson from American politics for Singapore is not that voters will tend towards partisan extremes. If anything, ideological extremism has become less, not more, fashionable in recent years. Neither Socialism nor Fascism has made a comeback in the aftermath of the great financial crisis and the global recession that followed it. The US experience also suggests that political polarisation is not caused by voters; it is more likely to be caused by the capture of democratic processes and institutions by partisan elites and interest groups.

The real lesson from the American experience is that if we want to avoid a polarised, acrimonious, gridlocked democracy, we should reduce income and wealth inequalities, limit the role of money and big business in our political institutions, avoid having a partisan media, and ensure that our elections are fair and competitive. It is only by being an open, fair, competitive and representative democratic system which reflects the diversity of society that we avoid the pitfalls of polarisation and paralysis.

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Donald Low is a Senior Fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. He previously served as the director of the Strategic Policy Office in the Public Service Division, where he was involved in a number of inter-agency scenario projects.