Red, Blue Divisions in US Nothing New, Says Harvard Study

Much has been written over the past few years about how the U.S. is evolving into a country divided between "red" states and "blue" states, with states becoming more politically and spatially divided than they have been in the past.

However, the New York Times (Hal R. Varian in "Economic Scene") recently reported a study by two Harvard economists that challenged this conventional wisdom.

In a working paper, "Myths and Realities of American Political Geography", Edward L. Glaser and Bryce A. Ward examined a number of contemporary and historical data sources on cultural, religious, economic and political attitudes and compared these responses across states.

They found differences in political attitudes across states nothing new: The Civil War and Roaring Twenties had much larger geographic variation in political view than today. They also found that America is not becoming more polarized. But they do describe the increased role of religion, a role more in line with the long-term past of the nation than its recent past. In addition, they describe the importance of cultural and religious attitudes in voting behavior.

It makes for interesting and thought provoking reading.


Article:
New York, Times, Thursday, May 4, C3
http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=FA0B1FFD355B0C778CDDAC0894DE404482

The paper can be downloaded from http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract--id=874977.