Collective contributions to polarized voting

Abstract

The crux of polarized voting in institutions like legislatures or courts is separation along a unidimensional ideological axis, but voting behavior is in reality more complex, with other signatures of collective order. We extend a foundational, statistical physics framework, restricted Boltzmann machines, to capture both such aspects of voting. The models are minimal, fit strongly correlated voting data, and have parameters that transparently give vote probabilities. The model accounts for multi-dimensional voter preferences and the context in which such preferences are expressed to disentangle individual from collective contributions; for example, legislative bills can negotiate multiple issues, whose appeal adds up or competes for individual votes. With the example of the U.S.~Senate, we find that senators have multi-dimensional preferences, and, as one consequence, non-polarized coalitions coexist with polarized ones. Increasing polarization is predominantly explained by fewer votes that elicit bipartisan coalitions. We show that these accounts can be consistent, if far more parsimonious, than interaction-driven order. The findings highlight the collective choice of the content and the rules of voting in the ebb and flow of polarization.