"Centrism is not in and of itself illegitimate. But its defenders should ask themselves hard questions about what it can possibly mean in 2026. A reflexive position in the middle – for the middle must by definition be reasonable – makes little sense in a completely asymmetrical political landscape."
As always, please reach out to us with feedback about the representation of your own research, about the encyclopaedia in general and with any suggestions regarding research and data to add to our collection. Looking forward to hear from you!
polarization.wiki/usecases/jan... by @lisajanssen.bsky.social & @turkenburgemma.bsky.social
polarization.wiki/usecases/ros... by Erin L. Rooster & Taylor N. Carlson
polarization.wiki/usecases/lev... by Matthew S. Levendusky & @stecula.bsky.social
polarization.wiki/usecases/kal... by @jkalla.bsky.social & @dbroockman.bsky.social
polarization.wiki/usecases/cio... by @costinciobanu.bsky.social & @danisandu.bsky.social
polarization.wiki/usecases/pat... by Veronika Patkós & Bendegúz Plesz
polarization.wiki/usecases/bla... by Adrian Blattner & Martin Koenen
We (@aleininger.bsky.social & our RA Lina Zündorf) have once again updated our encyclopedia of polarization with some great new examples of polarization research. You can find the new entries on polarization.wiki or listed below:
This 👇 is not only a new, but also my first publication! 🎉 @asheinze.bsky.social and I investigate why #youngpeople support the AfD in eastern Germany. Read it here (#openaccess): www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
The vast majority of these policies mean nothing to voters. They mean so little that we can get voters to change their opinions by telling them their party supports/rejects the policy. They mean so little that they will respond differently the next time you ask them. We have data establishing this.
Er sagt ja, wir sollen unsere Töchter fragen. Meine stand gestern in der ersten Reihe und hat gegen ihn demonstriert. Um sie herum viele viele weitere junge Frauen.
A professor is threatened online, has his flight canceled mysteriously, and this is all his university has to say:
“Rutgers University is committed to providing a secure environment (...) where all members of our community can share their opinions without fear of intimidation or harassment,
As long as the far right shapes public opinion, and mainstream parties follow public opinion, the far right dominates politics, whether in government or not.
Viele, die das Glück hatten mit Online-Subkulturen noch nie in Kontakt gekommen zu sein, können sich nicht vorstellen wie das aussieht.
Ihr müsst euch von d Idee verabschieden, d da eine konsistente, ordentliche Ideologie u ein klares, strategisches Motiv hinter Handlungen steht.
Das ist es nicht.
Once again, the credit for the research to our latest updates go out to our RA, Lina Zündorf.
Our team consists of @aleininger.bsky.social and Nelly Buntfuß, as well as our second RA, Jonas Voelzke.
polarization.wiki
gitlab.com/felixgruenew...
The code for this website is also available online, if you are interested in how any of this works.
An unrequited conflict Affective polarisation among ruralites, suburbanites and urbanites in Switzerland Alina Zumbrunn West European Politics. 2025 Camps, not just parties The dynamic foundations of affective polarization in multi-party systems Ivo Bantel Electoral Studies. 2023 Can't We All Just Get Along? How Women MPs Can Ameliorate Affective Polarization in Western Publics James Adams, David Bracken, Noam Gidron, Will Horne, Diana Z. O'brien, Kaitlin Senk American Political Science Review. 2023
The use-cases section includes every article we cite and, beyond that, a large selection of articles that apply polarization measures.
If you feel like a paper or measure (maybe yours) is missing in our collection, please feel free to reach out to us :)
Measures 'polaR' includes a range of different measures that can be computed with various datasets. Some measures, like the CSES polarization index, are linked to a specific dataset. Others, like the standard deviation of issue self-placements of respondents or spread of party positions, can be computed with different data sources. Wherever it is possible to compute a measure, the package offers the possibility to do so. Code block: sd_mass <- sd_mass (dataset = cses, issue = "leftright") sd_mass <- sd_mass (dataset = ess, issue = "leftright")
Our R-package, polaR, makes all the code used for the visualizations available via Github. If you only want to download the data, the shiny app lets you download a csv-file with your individual sample.
(In this most recent update, we added information on coefficients of agreement, as proposed by van der Eijk (2001), as well as further examples of the social distance scale. They are soon to be implemented in the R-package as well)
Screenshot from website: API Affective Polarization Index Polarization: Affective Ma... Vertical Coefficients of Agreement Coefficients of Agreement Polarization: Ideological Issue Dispersion (Weighted) Party System Dispersion Polarization: Ideological Elite
We collected all the measures that we used for a review paper in one dataset and compiled them into this encyclopedia. You can find origins, definitions, but also the data: our interactive shiny app allows you to visualize trends of polarization with different measures, datasets and country samples.
We have once again updated our encyclopedia of polarisation and I will take it as an opportunity to introduce some of the features again.
On ❄️ polarization.wiki you can find descriptions, formulas, data and applications of the most common measurements of political polarization.
This obsession is with “young men turning to the right” is everything that is wrong with the discussion about the far right.
It is not just an inadequate read of what is happening, and a bias towards the male norm, but it also normalizes the far right and obscures support for inclusive politics. 🧵
A question that I haven't heard a good answer to: if cutting migration by a third in a year hasn't changed the narrative on it at all - what would make you think cutting it by another third (or half] would?
Also using this to share this very good text: doi.org/10.1177/1461...
We shouldn’t criticize or try to soften the reaction to regressive/hostile politics. If we want to talk about dislike, we need to know what it is based on.
(and maybe outgroup homogeneity perception is one factor that shows how dislike is not based on policy differences but on identity mechanisms)
(Not) just to bump my paper back into your feeds: I believe this to be a very important point, it is not only about if and how strongly we dislike other groups, but also why. There are valid reasons to feel negative or be emotional, if that group promotes policies that are harmful to you or others.
