Rick Pildes here. A month after Jan. 6, 2021, I wrote an essay in the New York Times asserting that “every political reform proposal must [now] be judged by its ability to fuel or weaken extremist candidates.” I’ve now posted at SRRN a much fuller essay, entitled “Political Reforms to Combat Extremism,” which is forthcoming as a book chapter in a book out this fall entitled Our Nation at Risk: Election Integrity as a National Security Issue (J. Zelizer and K. Greenberg eds).

Here is the link to that forthcoming article and the abstract:

This article first identifies different ways of defining political extremism. It then explores empirical perspectives on the extent to which current political extremism and affective polarization are driven from the top down (political elites) or the bottom up.

After addressing these issues, the article then turns to five areas of institutional reform that could help mitigate political extremism: (1) replacing the traditional party primary; (2) changes to the presidential nominations process; (3) the right reforms of campaign finance; (4) greater emphasis on competitive election districts; and (5) changes to voting systems.

There is no silver bullet or set of institutional reforms that can magically transform our political culture. But institutional reforms can at least mitigate to some extent the political extremism that currently characterizes American political culture and politics.