Although much of the work done was practical analysis, some researchers sought to explicitly expand and refine the concept of polarization. In their 1994 book on presidential communication and leadership, for instance, Smith and Smith devote an entire chapter to “The Politics of Division” in which they focus on George H.W. Bush’s presidency as a case study in both the successful and unsuccessful use of polarizing strategies to win elections and govern the country.
This chapter is particularly interesting for contemporary work for a variety of reasons: first, it details the use of polarization by a single president over three separate time periods (the 1988 presidential election, the governing period from 1988-1992, and the presidential election ...
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