“Disconnect: The Breakdown of Representation in American Politics,” by Morris P. Fiorina and Samuel J. Abrams and “The Disappearing Center: Engaged Citizens, Polarization, and American Democracy,” by Alan I. Abramowitz

Are voters as polarized as their elected officials? The question, which has serious implications for the nation, particularly in an election year, has put political scientists at loggerheads. On one side of the debate is the renowned political scientist Morris Fiorina of Stanford University and the Hoover Institution, who in his most recent book, “Disconnect,” written with Samuel Abrams of Sarah Lawrence College, argues that America’s elected officials and political activists are sharply divided into two ideological camps, but that the essentially moderate and centrist electorate is not.