IDEAS Alumni Vicky Chuqiao Yang was recently featured in Forbes giving insight into “The Reason American Politics Are So Polarized”.

Vicky is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Santa Fe Institute, where she is working on modeling party polarization over time.

In this Forbes article, Kevin Anderton writes “Yang and her team have created a dynamic model that was able to predict the polarization of the parties and has been tested against 150 years-worth of data.” and “Yang’s model is one of the first steps in understanding what is happening in American politics. With information like this, we might be able to explain why parties are losing votes when they try to move to the center. The reason most likely has to do with political theater. As a party softens their position they become open to attack from the opposition. The result is that the other side looks tough and resolute in their beliefs and the softening side looks weak and appears to be pandering to get votes. The result is the creation of an “us or them” feeling to American politics”.

Congratulations Vicky!