Publication:
Polarization and the global crisis of democracy: common patterns, dynamics, and pernicious consequences for democratic polities

dc.contributor.coauthorMccoy, Jennifer
dc.contributor.coauthorRahman, Tahmina
dc.contributor.departmentDepartment of International Relations
dc.contributor.kuauthorSomer, Murat
dc.contributor.schoolcollegeinstituteCollege of Administrative Sciences and Economics
dc.date.accessioned2024-11-09T22:49:42Z
dc.date.issued2018
dc.description.abstractThis article argues that a common pattern and set of dynamics characterizes severe political and societal polarization in different contexts around the world, with pernicious consequences for democracy. Moving beyond the conventional conceptualization of polarization as ideological distance between political parties and candidates, we offer a conceptualization of polarization highlighting its inherently relational nature and its instrumental political use. Polarization is a process whereby the normal multiplicity of differences in a society increasingly align along a single dimension and people increasingly perceive and describe politics and society in terms of "Us" versus "Them." The politics and discourse of opposition and the social-psychological intergroup conflict dynamics produced by this alignment are a main source of the risks polarization generates for democracy, although we recognize that it can also produce opportunities for democracy. We argue that contemporary examples of polarization follow a frequent pattern whereby polarization is activated when major groups in society mobilize politically to achieve fundamental changes in structures, institutions, and power relations. Hence, newly constructed cleavages are appearing that underlie polarization and are not easily measured with the conventional Left-Right ideological scale. We identify three possible negative outcomes for democracy-" gridlock and careening," "democratic erosion or collapse under new elites and dominant groups," and "democratic erosion or collapse with old elites and dominant groups," and one possible positive outcome-"reformed democracy." Drawing on literature in psychology and political science, the article posits a set of causal mechanisms linking polarization to harm to democracy and illustrates the common patterns and pernicious consequences for democracy in four country cases: varying warning signs of democratic erosion in Hungary and the United States, and growing authoritarianism in Turkey and Venezuela.
dc.description.indexedbyWOS
dc.description.indexedbyScopus
dc.description.issue1
dc.description.openaccessNO
dc.description.publisherscopeInternational
dc.description.sponsoredbyTubitakEuN/A
dc.description.volume62
dc.identifier.doi10.1177/0002764218759576
dc.identifier.eissn1552-3381
dc.identifier.issn0002-7642
dc.identifier.quartileQ2
dc.identifier.scopus2-s2.0-85044374985
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.1177/0002764218759576
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14288/6551
dc.identifier.wos429623800002
dc.keywordsPolarization
dc.keywordsDemocratic erosion
dc.keywordsDemocracy
dc.keywordsAuthoritarianism
dc.keywordsPopulism
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherSage
dc.relation.ispartofAmerican Behavioral Scientist
dc.subjectPsychology, Clinical
dc.subjectSocial Sciences
dc.subjectInterdisciplinary
dc.titlePolarization and the global crisis of democracy: common patterns, dynamics, and pernicious consequences for democratic polities
dc.typeJournal Article
dspace.entity.typePublication
local.contributor.kuauthorSomer, Murat
local.publication.orgunit1College of Administrative Sciences and Economics
local.publication.orgunit2Department of International Relations
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relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication.latestForDiscovery9fc25a77-75a8-48c0-8878-02d9b71a9126
relation.isParentOrgUnitOfPublication972aa199-81e2-499f-908e-6fa3deca434a
relation.isParentOrgUnitOfPublication.latestForDiscovery972aa199-81e2-499f-908e-6fa3deca434a

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