Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Polarization was the word of the year. It’s highly problematic and we can do better.

Polarization was the word of the year. It’s highly problematic and we can do better.

Two wooden figurines arguing.

Getty Images, PM Images

PART ONE

Merriam-Webster named “polarization” the word of the year in 2024.


Hopefully, by identifying a problem, the country can begin to address it. However, the term itself is deeply problematic. Polarization has too many different definitions to be meaningful without highly specific modifiers. Additionally, its most obvious interpretation of ideological differences among the general public is less pervasive than typically believed; it suggests greater political divisions than exist in reality, and none of its current main definitions directly covers the highly important finding that Americans have an overblown sense of threat from those in the other political party.

This article highlights the problems with the term “polarization”. A companion article to be published on February 6, 2025, will suggest some other language to use instead.

While it may be surprising, polarization arguably has eight different definitions. Types of polarization include ideological (distance between policy positions), affective (difference between ingroup and outgroup-like, often measured as warmth on a “ feeling thermometer ”), moral (including lack of shared moral frames between groups), and false (overestimating the extent to which the types of polarization listed above and other divisive factors are true). Each of these definitions of polarization can have two variants. Each can refer to the “mass” (the broader American public), or the “elite” (opinion leaders such as elected officials).

Many organizations try to avoid this morass of definitions by instead using the term “ toxic polarization,” essentially a catch-all for its undesirable elements. However, if most Americans hear the term, many likely do not immediately understand what these toxic aspects are, and some may hear it as liberal jargon, reminiscent of terms such as “ toxic masculinity.” If most Americans assume polarization refers to ideological differences, then many who hear toxic polarization likely assume it means “very ideologically polarized.”

This reasonable interpretation, unfortunately, does not align with academic research about the American public. Researchers recognize that party sorting has occurred among all Americans, so there are fewer conservative Democrats or liberal Republicans than in the past. However, that is different from polarization, which implies a bimodal distribution with many on the extremes and few in the middle. Both the Pew Research Center and More in Common have developed political  typologies to describe the American public, and both of them only found about 15% of Americans on the ideological categories at the edges. The organization that James leads, More Like US, jointly runs Similarity Hub, which shows more than 400 examples of policy overlaps between Democrats and Republicans or supermajorities of Americans, covering every hot-button issue.

Using a term like polarization so frequently that Merriam-Webster named it the word of the year likely exacerbates false polarization. When people hear about a perceived problem like polarization again and again, they are more likely to think that this problem is real and large, even when it is actually overblown. In some original false polarization research by the organization More in Common, which calls the issue the “Perception Gap,” the more people followed the news (and likely heard about issues such as polarization), the more they incorrectly overestimated the ideological differences among those in the other political party. In a paper by leading expert Dr. Rachel Kleinfeld of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, she notes, “American voters are less ideologically polarized than they think they are.”

This said, some other individual definitions of polarization are fairly accurate, such as findings that members of Congress have become substantially  more ideologically polarized, and the overall public has become more affectively polarized, as seen in Figure 4 here.

Maybe five years ago, a smart way to be a practitioner in this field was to say that the main goal was not to reduce mass ideological polarization and make everyone a political centrist, but rather to reduce mass affective polarization. Yet, research now shows a weak or nonexistent link between mass affective polarization and attitudes/actions more directly related to the decline of America’s system of government. These include a willingness to break democratic norms or support political violence. In 2023, leading researchers published a study with the clear title, “Interventions reducing affective polarization do not necessarily improve anti-democratic attitudes.”

The results of the Strengthening Democracy Challenge (SDC) led by Stanford, which tested 25 short interventions on about 1,000 Americans each, provide greater insight into how mass affective polarization is still somewhat of a valuable concept, but also where all eight definitions of polarization fall flat.

The SDC, which used yet another term for mass affective polarization—partisan animosity—found that the concept was fairly closely related to all sorts of variables that are problematic but often not directly catastrophic, including social distrust, social distance, and opposition to bipartisan cooperation.

Yet, mass affective polarization/partisan animosity was much less correlated with the catastrophic consequence of support for undemocratic practices, and it was not at all correlated with support for political violence.

Only three interventions achieved all the main goals of the researchers of significantly reducing partisan animosity, anti-democratic attitudes, and support for political violence. A main reason why they were so successful comes down to a factor that none of the many definitions of polarization directly covers: overblown perceptions of threat from those in the other political party.

Of the interventions that achieved all these goals, one of them focused on the threatening finding that Americans are much less supportive of breaking democratic norms than the other side believes, and another showed that members of a political party think those in the other party threateningly dehumanize them twice as much than in reality. The third intervention—a 2020 Utah gubernatorial campaign ad made jointly by both candidates—has more varied elements, but it is notable that the candidates spoke highly of accepting election results and “a peaceful transition of power.” Study participants saw this ad after January 6, and some may have seen it as a possible antidote to threats of political violence and upheaval.

Hopefully, Merriam-Webster’s choice to name “polarization” the word of the year will actually mark the peak of using this term. In the companion article to be published on February 6, 2025, we explore two better terms to use instead.

James Coan is the co-founder and executive director of More Like US. Coan can be contacted at James@morelikeus.org

Sara Weinstein is a current intern at More Like US.

Read More

From Vision to Action: Remaking the World Through Social Entrepreneurship
assorted notepads

From Vision to Action: Remaking the World Through Social Entrepreneurship

Social entrepreneur John Marks developed a set of eleven working principles that have become his modus operandi and provide the basic framework for his new book, “From Vision to Action: Remaking the World Through Social Entrepreneurship," from which a series of three articles is adapted. While Marks applied these principles in nonprofit work, he says they are also applicable to social enterprisesand to life, in general.

PART TWO

PRINCIPLE #4: KEEP SHOWING UP. It has been said that 80 percent of success in life is showing up. For social entrepreneurs, this means continuing to stay engaged without dabbling or parachuting. Like a child’s toy windup truck that moves forward until it hits an obstacle and then backs off and finds another way forward, social entrepreneurs should be persistent—and adept at finding work-arounds. They must be willing to commit for the long term. I found that this was particularly important when working with Iranians, who tend to view the world in terms of centuries and millennia.

Keep ReadingShow less
Similarity Hub Shows >700 Instances of Cross-Partisan Common Ground

Two coloured pencils one red and one blue drawing a reef knot on a white paper background.

Getty Images, David Malan

Similarity Hub Shows >700 Instances of Cross-Partisan Common Ground

It is a common refrain to say that Americans need to find common ground across the political spectrum.

Over the past year, AllSides and More Like US found >700 instances of common ground on political topics, revealed in Similarity Hub. It highlights public opinion data from Gallup, Pew Research, YouGov, and many other reputable polling firms.

Keep ReadingShow less
The Responsibility of the First Vote

Primary voting, Michigan

Elaine Cromie/Getty Images

The Responsibility of the First Vote

The Fulcrum is committed to nurturing the next generation of journalists. To learn about the many NextGen initiatives we are leading, click HERE.

We asked Nathaly Suquinagua, a bilingual multimedia journalist with a B.A. in Journalism and a minor in Dance from Temple University, and a cohort member with the Fulcrum Fellowship, to share her thoughts on what democracy means to her and her perspective on its current health.

Keep ReadingShow less
Faith, Democracy, and the Catholic Duty To Stay Involved

Christian cross necklace on American flag.

Getty Images/Stock Photo

Faith, Democracy, and the Catholic Duty To Stay Involved

The Fulcrum is committed to nurturing the next generation of journalists. To learn about the many NextGen initiatives we are leading, click HERE.

We asked Angeles Ponpa, a graduate student at Northwestern Medill in the Politics, Policy, and Foreign Affairs specialization, and a Fulcrum summer intern, to share her thoughts on what democracy means to her and her perspective on its current health.

Keep ReadingShow less