Polarization makes us see politics from more limited points of view, writes Dr Jonathan Benson
In a blog post for the LSE, Dr Jonathan Benson writes about how political polarization undermines democracy.
Based on an article published in The American Political Science Review, Benson discusses the dangers of political polarization. He explains that the main threat isn鈥檛 that people come to accept misinformation or falsehoods, but that it narrows our perspectives on politics.
For democracy to work, he argues, it needs a diversity of perspectives from which to understand and view political issues. Polarising rhetoric 鈥榗ollapses our varied identities and compresses them into a more limited number of mega-perspectives.鈥�
鈥楤y telling us that politics is a struggle of good vs. evil between an 鈥榰s鈥� and a 鈥榯hem鈥�, it suggests that there are only two perspectives from which to view and understand politics鈥�.
is a Hallsworth Research Fellow at the Department of Politics.
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