Talk:Political polarization

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Critique

I've removed the following section from the wiki page as of https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Political_polarization&oldid=1033628255. These "critiques" aren't really about whether polarization is valid or if it can be measured, but about the _conclusions_ of the polarization literature. The debate about whether the US is polarizing or not is better suited for the page on political polarization in the United States. If someone wants to re-work this material to better fit with the page and be more accurate, that is fine with me. But, I think it's better left removed until that is done.

Critiques

There have long been numerous scholarly debates that argue over the concept of political polarization, both in whether it is valid, and how it can accurately be measured. There are four primary arguments against the validity of political polarization: 1) Limitations of the Two-Party System, 2) Issue Partisanship, 3) Cultural Differences, and 4) Westernized Focuses.

Limitations of the two-party system

By solely acknowledging voting patterns, one cannot make an accurate conclusion as to the presence or absence of political polarization, because in the United States, there is a limited number of presidential candidates in the two-party system. To assume that the majority of voters are mostly or completely in agreement with the plethora of political issues within their party is a false assumption. Despite contrary beliefs, there are many liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats in the U.S. who have differing political beliefs within their parties. However, these voters most often align with their party because of the limited choice of candidates, and to do otherwise (i.e. vote for a third-party candidate) is perceived as a waste of time.

Issue partisanship

Despite various claims that argue American society is more polarized today than leading up to the U.S. Civil War, numerous scholars explain that much evidence shows there is a relatively stable public opinion on the majority of sociopolitical issues. Where the most polarization exists, rather, is in the "hot topic" or "sensitive" issues (e.g. abortion, gay marriage, U.S. involvement in war). Over-reliance on focusing on opinions regarding social issues to draw conclusion about political polarization is not a valid measurement to fully represent the concept.

In regard to views on public policies, Fiorina and Abrams (2008) found virtually no evidence of an increase in widespread political polarization over the past thirty years. Nonetheless, many scholars explain that it is not an increase in ideological coherence among individuals which separates them; it is the partisan extremism (i.e. Democrat v. Republican) which eventually separates voters into one party or the other.

Cultural differences

Proponents of the cultural differences argument are critical of political polarization because of numerous factors, influences, and demographics. Among voter demographic features, there is much evidence of race, sex, age, and educational attainment as being some of the main influences in voting behaviors. In addition to these factors, the geographic region often plays a major role in voting behavior. Lastly, one's socioeconomic status is a reliable predictor of voting behavior. The combination of these factors and influences compel researchers to reconsider the causes of political polarization.

Westernized focus

Much like many academic studies, political polarization scholars often are too narrowly focused within one nation and thus make broad generalizations regarding the concept from a national study. To have a better picture of the presence or absence of political polarization, scholars must consider widening the scope of their studies to the international contexts.

LarryLovesLimes (talk) 21:21, 14 July 2021 (UTC)

Canada

The section on Canada seems to confuse voters attitudes towards the Liberals and NDP. The 2011 election was the first time in Canadian history that the NDP were one of the top two parties in a federal election. What they state about Liberal voters abandoning them for the NDP is the opposite of how things have worked in past, Jack Layton's work in 2011 being the first time the NDP have had a showing anywhere near the Liberals, let alone superior to them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.97.240.192 (talk) 05:35, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

The Public

In democracies and other representative governments, citizens vote for the political actors who will represent them. Some scholars argue that political polarization reflects the public's ideology and voting preferences

This is quite possibly the most ridiculous thing I've ever read, more so because it is given an air of authenticity and authority. Anyone who has studied the problem knows perfectly well that polarization is an intentional process implemented from the top down to push undecided voters from one side to the other, usually with heaps of cash from one of two parties. The insane notion that the public is responsible for this state of affairs is unbelievable nonsense that has not a single shred of evidence in its favor. The public is neither left nor right, liberal nor conservative, dovish nor hawkish; these are demonstrably artificial constructions forced upon the public; I cannot think of anything more false, more dishonest, than blaming the public for this state of affairs. A line has been crossed. Viriditas (talk) 03:54, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

That totally explains polarization in one party systems! Well at least the article is still in the original state. That last sentence though: "A line has been crossed." Priceless entertainment. AlwaysUnite (talk) 19:20, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Causes - Party polarization

The second paragraph in this section is not grammatical or well-written. I could guess some of what was intended, but honestly, someone with more invested in this article should fix it. I really didn't look much beyond this to see how widespread this is. Jkgree (talk) 19:24, 15 January 2017 (UTC)

Examples?

This article is very short on real world examples. Nothing about the cold war, the possibility of a 'new cold war', the reformation, northern Ireland, Israel vs Iran, trump vs Kim, US vs China, Catalonia separatists vs Madrid Surely some or all of these deserve a mention? Crawiki (talk) 12:08, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Polarization versus politicization

Looking at the two articles, might there be something that ought to get added to this page to explain the distinction in depth? CoffeeWithMarkets (talk) 01:58, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

New source

Hi folks, here is a new source which might be useful for the article. According to some interpretations, the fact that polarization is increasing in some countries but decreasing in others is evidence that social media is not a main cause. MonsieurD (talk) 15:03, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

Depolarization?

Couldn't there be a section about solutions to polarization, how to reverse this process? A sort of "treatment" section to the polarization disease? Would be the best way to wrap up the page. --96.22.228.193 (talk) 21:19, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

I like that idea but we need sources. They should be easy to find. Dronebogus (talk) 22:02, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

٩٩ 197.32.81.14 (talk) 05:42, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Why did you delete the reference to Argentina?

@Jonas wikip: Why did you delete the following:

The office of Ombudsman of Argentina has been vacant since 2009, along with a companion Public Defender's office, allegedly because of pernicious polarization.

This article appeared in the Revista Mexicana de Opinión Pública (~Mexican Journal of Public Opinion), edited by the faculty of political and social sciences of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

I think this article says something important about political polarization in Argentina, and I think it should be cited somewhere in this article. The article does not use the term "Pernicious polarization", but that term seems to apply to the situation in Argentina as described in this article and as I infer from numerous other sources.

Comments? I'm reverting your deletion. Thanks, DavidMCEddy (talk) 16:54, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

References

DavidMCEddy (talk) 16:54, 22 August 2023 (UTC)