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Research papers on Political polarization

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  1. Political Polarization on the Digital Sphere: A Cross-platform, Over-time Analysis of Interactional, Positional, and Affective Polarization on Social Media

    Moran Yarchi, Christian Baden, Neta Kligler-Vilenchik · 2020 · Political Communication · 437 citations

    Political polarization on the digital sphere poses a real challenge to many democracies around the world. Although the issue has received some scholarly attention, there is a need to improve the conceptual precision in the increasingly blurry debate. The use of computational communication science approaches allows us to track political conversations in a fine-grained manner within their natural settings – the realm of interactive social media. The present study combines different algorithmic approaches to studying social media data in order to capture both the interactional structure and content of dynamic political talk online. We conducted an analysis of political polarization across socia

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  2. Do Search Algorithms Endanger Democracy? An Experimental Investigation of Algorithm Effects on Political Polarization

    Jaeho Cho, Saifuddin Ahmed, Martin Hilbert, et al. · 2020 · Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media · 164 citations

    This study examines algorithm effects on user opinion, utilizing a real-world recommender algorithm of a highly popular video-sharing platform, YouTube. We experimentally manipulate user search/watch history by our custom programming. A controlled laboratory experiment is then conducted to examine whether exposure to algorithmically recommended content reinforces and polarizes political opinions. Results suggest that political self-reinforcement, as indicated by the political emotion-ideology alignment, and affective polarization are heightened by political videos – selected by the YouTube recommender algorithm – based on participants’ own search preferences. Suggestions for how to reduce al

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  5. Affective Polarization in Multiparty Systems? Comparing Affective Polarization Towards Voters and Parties in Norway and the United States

    Erik Knudsen · 2021 · Scandinavian Political Studies · 75 citations

    A growing body of comparative studies on partisan hostility – a phenomenon known as affective polarization – is providing evidence that partisan affective polarization is generally no greater in the United States than it is in many European multiparty systems. This article takes the comparative literature on affective polarization one step further by presenting the first comparative study on affective polarization that simultaneously uses, compares and combines a direct measure of affective polarization towards voters (using the inter‐party marriage measure) and an indirect measure of affective polarization towards parties (using the like/dislike of party measure) while accounting for the fa

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  6. Democracy and the Epistemic Problems of Political Polarization

    Jonathan Benson · 2023 · American Political Science Review · 51 citations

    Political polarization is one of the most discussed challenges facing contemporary democracies and is often associated with a broader epistemic crisis. While inspiring a large literature in political science, polarization’s epistemic problems also have significance for normative democratic theory, and this study develops a new approach aimed at understanding them. In contrast to prominent accounts from political psychology—group polarization theory and cultural cognition theory—which argue that polarization leads individuals to form unreliable political beliefs, this study focuses on system-level diversity. It argues that polarization’s epistemic harms are best located in its tendency to red

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  8. A new regime divide? Democratic backsliding, attitudes towards democracy and affective polarization

    Theresa Gessler, Natasha Wunsch · 2025 · European Journal of Political Research · 37 citations

    Partisan‐based affective polarization has been posited as a key explanation for citizens' tolerance towards democratic backsliding, with voters more likely to overlook democratic violations conducted by in‐party candidates. Our study theorizes and empirically explores the reverse perspective on this relationship: focusing on the role of the opposition, we submit that backsliding may crystallize an affective dislike among opposition supporters towards the governing party and its supporters that stems from a regime divide over democracy itself. To probe the plausibility of this argument, we leverage original survey data collected in Hungary, where democratic backsliding under the Fidesz govern

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  9. Social Media Use and Political Engagement in Polarized Times. Examining the Contextual Roles of Issue and Affective Polarization in Developed Democracies

    Michael Chan, Jingjing Yi · 2024 · Political Communication · 36 citations

    Studies addressing the normative questions of whether social media use positively or negatively affects citizens' levels of democratic engagement and satisfaction with democracy have produced mixed findings.This study tests the proposition that political polarization plays an important contingent role in explaining these relationships.Combining Varieties of Democracy (VDEM) and World Values Survey (WVS) data, this study examines how issue polarization and affective polarization at the country level shape the relationships between social media use for political information and democratic outcomes in 27 developed democracies.The findings show divergent consequences of social media use continge

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  10. Affective partisan polarization, citizens’ attitudes, and political behavior in Swiss democracy

    Benjamin Jansen, Alois Stutzer · 2026 · Zeitschrift für schweizerische Statistik und Volkswirtschaft/Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Volkswirtschaft und Statistik/Swiss journal of economics and statistics · 2 citations

    Abstract There is a concern that citizens with different political positions and party affiliations increasingly dislike each other. We examine this affective polarization, which is often associated with a weakening of democracy, in the context of Switzerland’s multiparty landscape with proportional governmental representation. Evaluating the long-term development of affective polarization in Switzerland with both historical and newly gathered data for 2023, we find an increase between 1999 and 2003 but hardly any change over the last two decades. In a complementary perspective based on voters’ revealed preferences, our analysis of straight- vs. split-ticket voting behavior in national parli

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  11. Mitigating Affective Polarization in Korean Democracy : Two Experimental Studies of the Role of Superordinate Identity and Political Elite Cooperation

    Jun Young Choi, Sang Hee Park, Bon Sang Koo · 2024 · Korean Political Science Review · 1 citations

    정서적 양극화는 한국의 민주주의에 매우 부정적인 영향을 미치는 요인이다. 그러나 한국에서는 정서적 양극화의 원인과 그것이 민주주의에 지니는 함의에 관한 연구들만 진행되었을 뿐 정작 이 문제를 어떻게 해결할 것인지에 관해서는 거의 연구가 이루어지지 않았다. 이 연구는 서구에서 정서적 양극화를 줄이는 데 효과적인 것으로 확인된 상위정체성에 대한 강조와 정치엘리트 간 협치가 한국 유권자 사이에 형성되어 있는 정서적 양극화를 완화하는 데도 도움이 되는지 두 개의 실험을 통해 검증하는 것을 목적으로 한다. 실험결과에 따르면 한국인이라는 상위정체성이 강조되었음에도 당파적 유권자의 정서적 양극화 수준은 감소하지 않는 것으로 나타났다. 이와 같은 결과가 실험설계상의 오류인지 아니면 한국인이라는 상위정체성은 정서적 양극화를 줄이는 데 실제로 아무런 효과가 없는 것인지는 향후 추가적인 검증이 이루어질 필요가 있다. 반면 정치엘리트 간 협치는 당파적 유권자의 정서적 양극화 수준을 효과적으로 떨어뜨리는 것으로 나타났다. 이와 같은 결과는 정치엘리트 간 협치는 단순히 여야 간 교착상태를 타개하기 위한 수단 이상의 의미를 지닌다는 점을 보여준다. 즉 협치는 분열된 국민을 통합하는 중요하고 효과적인 방법이 될 수 있다.

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  12. Fostering Open-Minded Political Engagement through Online Interscholastic Discussions: Toward Reducing Affective Political Polarization

    Brett L. M. Levy, Alina Lewis · 2025 · Democracy & Education · 1 citations

    This study explores how political discussions among diverse youth can support students’ open-minded political engagement. For this study, we collaborated with two teachers to adapt and enact instruction aimed at supporting students’ discussion of controversial issues across political, geographic, and cultural boundaries. During an instructional unit exploring various ways to strengthen our election system, students engaged in discussions with their classmates and with peers from another school via an online video discussion board. We collected data through observations and interviews. Our findings indicate that the instruction enhanced students’ understanding of their political bubbles and t

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  13. UNITED STATES, BRAZIL, POLITICAL POLARIZATION AND DEMOCRATIC PUSHBACK. ASSAULT ON DEMOCRACY?

    Nicolò Ferraris · 2023 · Il Politico · 1 citations

    This article, starting with the attacks on U.S. and Brazilian democratic institutions in January 2021 and 2023, aims to understand whether and how the phenomenon of political polarization may be related to an increase in political violence in democracies and a possible democratic retreat. Likewise, the concept of democratic resilience and how democracies can resist the dangers of political polarization will be investigated. The phenomenon of political polarization can be detrimental to democracies in that, if extreme, it can bring politics to the essential categories of "friend and foe," the politics of "us versus them," which can result in the acceptance of undemocratic actions such as the

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  14. Unaffected polarization? Populism and affective polarization in comparative perspective

    Alberto Stefanelli, Bruno Castanho Silva · 2026 · Political Psychology · 1 citations

    With both affective polarization and populism on the rise in several countries, many have proposed a link between the two phenomena. Yet, research offers little direct evidence on whether populist individuals are more polarized than their mainstream conunterparts. This paper aims to fill this gap by using data from 37 elections in 31 countries to provide a comparative account of the relationship between populism and affective polarization at the individual level. Contrary to common assumptions, resuts show no significant difference in affective polarization between more and less populist individuals. Instead, we identify a curvilinear relationship wherein both individauls who strongly endors

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  16. Like Cats and Dogs: Affective Polarization and Polarized Non-Political Preferences in Five Democracies

    Alessandro Nai, Elizabeth L. Young, Rebecca Aili Ploof, et al. · 2026 · American Politics Research

    Mounting evidence shows the presence of spillover effects of inter-partisan animosity on non-political attitudes, such as social interactions, that are re-interpreted via a partisan lens. Much less clear is whether this spillover effect can also shape cultural preferences or lifestyle choices. In this article we present novel evidence on the relationship between affective polarization and polarized preferences for cats and dogs as pets. That is, we examine the extent in which people showcase a strong preference for their type of pets (e.g., cats) while disliking the other type (e.g., dogs), a phenomenon we term affective PAWlarization. We leverage novel comparative survey evidence gathered f

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  17. How does political polarization affect voter turnout in parliamentary elections : A comparative study of old and new democracies

    Jens Panelius · 2025 · Työväentutkimus Vuosikirja

    Syftet med avhandlingen är att undersöka sambandet mellan politisk polarisering och valdeltagandet i olika demokratier i Europa. Länderna som undersöks är Sverige, Österrike, Tyskland, Nederländerna, Portugal, Lettland, Litauen, Polen, Ungern och Slovakien, länderna är indelade i gamla demokratier och nya demokratier. Resultaten tyder på att sambandet mellan politisk polarisering och valdeltagande är svagt för länderna då de jämförs alla tillsammans. Skiljer man åt länderna i gamla demokratier och nya demokratier ser man en tydligare skillnad, de gamla demokratiernas valdeltagande påverkas negativt av politisk polarisering medan de nya demokratiernas valdeltagande i sin tur påverkas positivt

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  18. Polarization and Political Violence: When Polarization Turns Violent

    Jeffrey S. Kopstein · 2026 · Journal of Democracy

    Abstract: This essay challenges the assumption that political polarization leads naturally to political violence. Surveying cases from ancient Alexandria and the Russian pogroms to lynching in the American South, Hindu-Muslim riots in India, and the 2017 "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, the essay argues that polarization turns deadly only when several forces converge: when affective hostility fuses with fears of demographic change and political displacement, when groups come to see control of the polity as a matter of collective survival, and when the state retreats from enforcing equal protection. Mass democracy heightens the danger by translating demographic difference into poli

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  19. Affective Alignment and Hidden Conflicts: Political Emotions in Blended Spaces of Democratic Education Classrooms

    Sonja Helkala · 2026 · Democracy & Education

    The interaction between emotions and politics is evident in democratic education settings. This study contributes to the literature on the role of political emotions in democratic education by shedding light on the significance that the new digital and social media environments have for the manifestation of political emotions in educational contexts. In Finnish schools, political issues are incorporated into the curriculum, and political questions are addressed as part of democratic education and political identities are formed. However, there has been relatively little research on political emotions in schools. This article explores political emotions in democratic education practice throug

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