Uncivil Agreement

How Politics Became Our Identity

By: Lilliana Mason

Narrated by: Rebecca Gibel

Political polarization in America is at an all-time high, and the conflict has moved beyond disagreements about matters of policy. For the first time in more than 20 years, research has shown that members of both parties hold strongly unfavorable views of their opponents. This is polarization rooted in social identity, and it is growing. The campaign and election of Donald Trump laid bare this fact of the American electorate, its successful rhetoric of "us versus them" tapping into a powerful current of anger and resentment.

With Uncivil Agreement, Lilliana Mason looks at the growing social gulf across racial, religious, and cultural lines, which have recently come to divide neatly between the two major political parties. She argues that group identifications have changed the way we think and feel about ourselves and our opponents. Even when Democrats and Republicans can agree on policy outcomes, they tend to view one another with distrust and to work for party victory over all else.

Bringing together theory from political science and social psychology, Uncivil Agreement clearly describes this increasingly "social" type of polarization in American politics and will add much to our understanding of contemporary politics.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2018 The University of Chicago (P)2019 Tantor

Content not suited for an audio book

Very interesting finding, but hard to follow along. Lots of descriptions of tables and charts.

Excellent

Mason does a great job unpacking the relationship between identity, partisanship, and polarization. In particular, her description and explanation of the effects of crosscutting identities on politics make this well worth a listen.

Not bad, but maybe missing a causal relationship

The book is written and read well. I did find it odd that all of the studies referenced had both social group dynamics and competition. The social group dynamics were cited a causal, while the unifying competition seemed to be addressed as neutral, a survey method or contributing only when combined with group social dynamics.

Perhaps it is the competition more than group identity that is causing the negative reactions. Just a thought to consider as you listen to the book.

I would recommend giving it a read overall especially if you are not a policy based voter.

Read it, don't listen to it

A very well-researched and important book. Unfortunately, it's a poor "listen" because it's mostly the narrator describing charts and statistics, which are much easier to read than imagine. On paper, it'd be a one hour skim (over mostly redundant statistics.) Again, a very important topic and great research. But it's not appropriate for an audio book.

Extremely academic

This is more of a research paper than a book. If you enjoy academic text, this is best for you.