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If we can agree that American democracy is backsliding, the question arises: How do we fix it, or at a minimum, reverse the most deleterious trends that pervade our current political milieu? The American Founders knew that citizens were not naturally imbued with the sensibilities on which democratic republics are based. In particular, the Founders recognized that 'the people' could quickly devolve into 'the mob,' that demagogues could come to power by exploiting a democratic society's internal tensions, and that democratic citizens could be fickle and easily distracted. The system of checks and balances was constructed with these challenges in mind. Separating powers across the different branches of government was a deliberate attempt to thwart the worst impulses of demagogues and would-be authoritarians. Their political system is famously slow, messy, and often frustrating, but the Founders hoped these safeguards would prevent American democracy from derailing. The trouble now, however, is that these carefully curated institutions have turned on their host and are empowering and expanding the immoderate and illiberal forces they were intended to sideline. Given the extent of the decay, the kinds of modest institutional changes that generate considerable enthusiasm among democracy advocates and reformers-for instance, ending the Senate filibuster, adding more states to the Union, increasing the size of Congress and the Supreme Court, or term-limiting their members-are unlikely to meet the problem. Tinkering with our institutions distracts from a larger, more fundamental challenge that students of popular regimes have recognized for centuries: without a degree of civic virtue in both the masses and the elites, democracy will not be sustainable. Instead of grasping for institutional tweaks, we first should seek ways to build trust among our fellow citizens and within the political institutions we share. Without a revival of civic virtue to serve as a foundation, institutional reforms are unlikely to relieve what is troubling democracy in America; they may even exacerbate the problem., Author(s): Robert M. Eisinger [sup.1] , Robert P. Saldin [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) Glen Cove, USA (2) https://ror.org/0078xmk34, grid.253613.0, 0000 0001 2192 5772, Political Science, University of Montana, , Missoula, [...]

Introduction 1118 I. The Prosecution-Polarization Dynamic 1120 A. Defining Polarization 1120 B. Three Stages of Polarization 1123 II. Theorizing Social Meaning and Prosecution 1127 III. Justifying Democratization and Decriminalization 1132 [...], Domestically and internationally, two prominent contemporary discourses arise in law and society. First, we live in a time of tremendous uncertainty about the nature and function of criminal justice. In the United States, we chronicle mass incarceration, while the international community weighs war crimes prosecutions in Ukraine. Second, we live in a time of polarization, both at home and abroad. Cultural and political division is elevated domestically, while the international community debates fragmentation in a multipolar world. This symposium contribution to the Fordham Urban Law Journal's "Future of Prosecution" symposium asks: what does it mean to prosecute in a time of polarization? This contribution describes a prosecution-polarization dynamic, wherein criminal cases may foster polarization domestically and internationally. In making this argument, this symposium contribution will survey theories of philosophy, psychology, and sociology that show the complexity of social meaning. It argues that this dynamic thus complicates scholarly notions that criminal justice should do reparative work Domestically, some scholars argue that criminal justice should restore harmed victims or reconstruct torn community norms after a moral breach. Internationally, scholars contend that criminal tribunals should effecttransitional justice, promoting accountability for atrocity crimes--genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes--in order to heal post-conflict societies. And yet, often, indictment and prosecution have the opposite effect, fostering polarization and alienation.

Introduction 1094 I, Politics and Prosecutors: A Brief History 1096 A. A Bipartisan Space 1096 B. Reactive Prosecutors 1099 II. The Current (and Future?) Politics of Prosecution: Rising Partisanship and [...], Prosecution in the United States has long been political. But the nature of prosecutorial politics is changing. Once bipartisan and largely reactive, the politics of prosecution is more partisan and proactive, in ways that both reflect and amplify larger cleavages in American society. This Essay considers the upsides and downsides of this development. On the one hand, political contestation over prosecution democratizes criminal enforcement, stimulates public thinking and debate about the role and purpose of criminal law, and promotes local political agency. On the other, it risks falling prey to the same pitfalls that have impoverished American political life generally in recent decades: societal division, decline in reasoned assessment, difficulties forging sustainable compromise, and erosion of trust in institutions. The Essay concludes with some thoughts on how to maximize the upsides and minimize the downsides in this new era of partisan prosecutorial politics.

TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 87 I. POLARIZATION OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN THE UNITED STATES: KEY DRIVERS 89 A. End of White Christian America 89 B. Tribalization of American Politics and [...], Americans are deeply polarized on a plethora of issues. One of the most prominent areas of polarization is religious liberty, which in recent years has increasingly pitted conservative, white Christians against a range of marginalized minorities, particularly Muslims. The divide threatens Muslims' rights and the vitality of religious liberty more broadly. This Article assesses the extent to which self-interest--especially the self-interest of the conservative Justices of the Supreme Court--can help depolarize religious liberty. Professor Derrick Bell's theory of "interest convergence" helps connect different self-interests that, in turn, enable issue-specific coalitions strong enough to effect serious cultural and legal change. Bell used interest convergence theory to analyze judicial decisionmaking during the civil rights movement. Other scholars have built upon Bell's original thesis about Black people's rights by extending interest convergence to other racial minorities. This Article is the first to consider the implications of interest convergence not just for religious minorities but specifically the status of religious minorities in today's politicized religious liberty landscape. In so doing, it aims to formulate a theory of "religious liberty interest convergence." Specifically, this Article applies Bell's framework to two recent Supreme Court cases. It uses interest convergence theory to explain the rulings against Muslim claimants in Trump v. Hawaii (2018) and for Muslim claimants in Tanzin v. Tanvir (2020). The Article concludes by assessing the relevance of religious liberty interest convergence to political coalition-building. In both the judicial and coalition-building contexts, relying on self-interest helps create openings where openings may not otherwise be possible.

Abstract This study analyzes political polarization among the South Korean elite by examining 17 years' worth of subcommittee meeting minutes from the South Korean National Assembly's standing committees. Its analysis [...]

This article explores the effects of the Tanzanian constitutional review process undertaken from 2011 to 2015 by Zanzibar's government of national unity (GNU), which was operative between 2010 and 2015. Central to this analysis is the historicity of constitutionalism in Tanzania and political antagonism and violence in Zanzibar. The reconciliation agreement of 2009 brought relative stability to the isles; however, the start of the constitutional review process led the GNU partners to take opposite stands on key issues of the union framework and Zanzibar autonomy, rekindling identity distinctions and deep-rooted enmity. This discourse, together with other proximate factors, explains the withering of the reconciliatory spirit within Zanzibar's unity government during the constitutional review process, leading ultimately to the collapse of the process and the discontinuation of the GNU. As it was expected that the aborted constitutional review process would be resumed after the 2020 elections, the lessons learned from the first phase of the process will be vital to understanding its possible completion., Introduction Establishing governments of national unity (GNU) has been an increasingly employed strategy to bridge politically divided societies (Cheeseman 2011). Institutionalizing a GNU usually demands constitutional amendments or reforms. The [...]

TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 227 I. PRACTICE-BASED CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 228 II. POLARIZED POLITICS AND PRACTICE-BASED CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 232 INTRODUCTION Judicial legitimacy is not easy to maintain. Professor Richard Fallon's Law [...], We might reasonably think that both descriptive and normative legitimacy for a court that interprets a constitution and rules on the validity of deeply controversial issues of public policy are rooted in such neutral factors as whether judges are acting in good faith and constructing arguments using recognized legal modalities. Unfortunately, in a highly polarized, partisan environment, such efforts at neutral decisionmaking are likely to be dismissed by partisan opponents, and judicial decisions are likely to be evaluated by the cruder metric of substantive alignment with the observer's own policy preferences. In an era of polarized politics, even judges deliberating in good faith may come to be perceived as illegitimate if they reach the "wrong" conclusions about high-profile, contentious constitutional issues.

While many essays have addressed the social events and psychological traits that drive polarized thinking, the neural underpinnings of uncertainty and polarization are largely unknown. We know the brain processes [...]

C. Casey and Beyond In Casey, by substituting the minimalist undue burden standards for the maximalist trimester test, the Court approved waiting period and informed consent measures. The Court also [...]

INTRODUCTION I. MINIMALISM THEORY AND ABORTION II. WHAT ABORTION POLITICS TELLS US ABOUT JUDICIAL MINIMALISM A. Roe v. Wade B. From Roe to Casey C. Casey and Beyond 1. 1992-2009 [...]

One of the fiercest electoral battles fought in the Turkish political history, the March 30, 2014 local elections yielded results akin to an outcome of a general election. The AK Party's victory in the ballot box has serious implications for Turkish politics and society in general. This paper will thus discuss and explain the implications of the elections for the AK Party' metamorphosis into a dominant party. The paper will also shed light on how the AK Party's consolidation of its power has led to the emegence of a 'New Turkey.' Last, the article will point to the increased polarization in Turkish society, an externality of the AK Party's dominant party status and the New Turkey., The March 30, 2014 local elections epitomized the fiercest battle fought in Turkish political history between the government and an anti-government coalition that included a range of legitimate and illegitimate [...]

Since the 2010 midterm election, a combination of ideologically polarized parties and divided government has resulted in gridlock in Washington. Neither party can implement its own policy agenda, but bipartisan compromise appears to be almost impossible to achieve. In this article, I present evidence that the deep ideological divide between the parties in Washington is itself rooted in divisions that have been developing in American society for decades. Democratic and Republican voters are much more divided along geographic, racial, cultural, and ideological lines than in the past. Polarization in Washington reflects polarization within the American electorate. The result has been gridlock in Washington along with increasing divergence of social and economic policies at the state level with red states and blue states moving in opposing directions. I argue that the only way to end gridlock in Washington is party democracy, which would require, at a minimum, ending the Senate filibuster but, ideally, major constitutional reforms such as eliminating midterm elections., The government in Washington is dysfunctional. That is one of the few things that Democrats and Republicans can agree on these days. Our nation faces major challenges in dealing with [...]

Polarization and gridlock are defining characteristics of present-day American national politics, reflecting the interaction of the Madisonian system's checks and balances with the widening partisan and ideological divisions in the House and Senate. These divisions have coevolved with complimentary changes in electoral politics over the same period in a mutually reinforcing spiral. The partisan, ideological, and policy opinions of American voters have grown more internally consistent, more distinctive between parties, and more predictive of voting in national elections. Party loyalty has increased, ticket splitting has decreased, and winning congressional seats against the local partisan grain has become much more difficult. The congressional parties thus represent increasingly divergent electoral constituencies. Republicans enjoy a structural advantage in the distribution of their regular voters across House districts, so these changes have solidified their control of the House even as their national party grows less competitive nationally. Divided government and polarized politics thus rest on a firm electoral base, and partisan warfare in Washington is unlikely to diminish until voters begin to punish the warriors., Acute partisan conflict arising from the ideological polarization of the national parties is now a dominant feature of American politics. The series of prominent showdowns over fiscal policy between Democratic [...]

The MHP won 13 percent of the vote in the June 2011 elections, which guaranteed it 52 seats in parliament. Ever since the 1960s, the MHP has operated with a vague party identity that amalgamated different, even contradictory, elements such as Islam, folk nationalism, secularism, militarism, Kemalism, statism, and even Ottomanism. However, the serious issues that are challenging Turkish politics today, such as civilian-military relations, the Ergenekon trial, Islam in the public sphere, the Kurdish question, the crisis of the presidential election, or the 2010 referendum, have made a nebulous discourse operationally impossible. This paper argues that the recent political polarization between the AK Party and the CHP put an end to the MHP's strategy and discourse of traditional obscurantism, causing in these last elections this party's unimpressive electoral performance., Xhe Nationalist Action Party (Milliyetci Hareket Partisi, MHP) won 13 percent of the vote in the June 2011 elections, which guaranteed it 52 seats in parliament. Although many parties were [...]

This article tests two models of extremism versus moderation in presidential policy stances, a party activist theory and a congressional context theory. The party activist theory argues that, due to the electoral and nomination reforms of the mid-1970s, party activists became increasingly important and powerful in their parties. As activists tend to be more policy extreme than rank-and-file voters, and grew more extreme over the past several decades, this theory predicts presidents will also be more policy extreme in the postreform than the prereform era. The congressional context theory focuses on divided government and polarization. It argues that policy-minded presidents must moderate their policy positions during divided government because they need support from the opposition party. However, polarization erects barriers and disincentives for presidential moderation, offsetting the moderating tendencies of divided government. Using data on presidential policy positions from the 1950s through the early 2000s, I test both theories, finding support for the congressional context but not the party activist theory., For several decades the American political system has been polarizing along partisan, ideological, and issue lines at both the mass and elite levels. One implication of polarization is the disappearance [...]

Using data from U.S. states, I investigate the relationship between ethnic diversity and trust. I find a negative relationship between ethnic polarization and trust and a U-shaped relationship between ethnic fractionalization and trust. According to my estimations, (a) going from an ethnic polarization index (PI) of 0 to an ethnic PI of 1 decreases trust by almost 12% points; and (b) trust is minimized when the ethnic fractionalization index is equal to 0.34. (JEL D74, J15, Z13), I. INTRODUCTION As Putnam (2007) argues, immigration has grown significantly across the rich countries of the world in the last few decades and it continues to grow. While the share [...]

This introductory essay to the special issue of Argumentation and Advocacy on Public Argument/Digital Media makes the case for a sustained interrogation of digitally-networked argumentation practices. To complement current scholarship on how new forms of digital mediation produce group polarization and truthiness, I suggest that argumentation scholars look at digital media as a rich source for the production and criticism of argument. Each of the essays in the special issue is then introduced by examining five cross-cutting themes that argumentation scholars may consider when examining how digital media produce networked argument practices: interactivity, instantaneity, scale, archiving, and search. Key Words: digital media, networked argument practices, polarization, truthiness, What is the fate of public argument in an era of digital media? It is all too easy to follow Stephen Colbert's lead and simply suggest that 'truthiness' reigns given [...]

The authors utilize data from nearly 200 surveys conducted during the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations to evaluate whose presidential evaluations polarize and why. Specifically, assessments of the president's handling of the economy among high-, middle-, and low-education Democrats, independents, and Republicans are considered. The authors find only weak evidence that education moderates partisan evaluations of the president. Throughout the period of analysis, there are more similarities across partisan groups than differences. However, midway through Bush's first term in office, polarization becomes pronounced. Statistical analysis suggests that this pattern arises because Republicans no longer incorporated economic information into their evaluations, as they did during the Clinton presidency., Partisan polarization has become an important feature of American politics. Those studying political institutions (Binder 1999, 2003; McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal 2006) as well as public opinion and voting (Barrels [...]

The Honduran coup d'etat of 28 June 2009 triggered a series of measures by the Organization of American States (OAS) and the international community to restore ousted President Manuel 'Mel' [...]

Sunstein's Infotopia offers four reasons for thinking that information-pooling via mechanical aggregation of votes is superior to discursive sharing of opinions. This article focuses on two of them--the Common Knowledge Effect and Group Polarisation--showing that both phenomena might have perfectly good Bayesian explanations. Far from constituting 'errors', both can actually contribute to truth-tracking in ways that cannot be accomplished via mechanical aggregation of votes alone. Keywords: aggregation of information; collective deliberation; voting; reasoning; Common Knowledge Effect; Group Polarisation., Cass Sunstein's Infotopia is, as its subtitle proclaims, an exploration of How Many Minds Produce Knowledge. (1) Sunstein's punch line is that they do it well when they do it [...]

Byline: Claude S. Fischer, Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720; email: fischer1@berkeley.edu; Greggor Mattson, Department of Sociology, Oberlin College, Oberlin, Ohio 44074; email: greggor.mattson@oberlin.edu Keywords: culture wars, immigration, politics, lifestyles, polarization Abstract The view that America is fragmenting is popular among both pundits and academics and may well be endemic to American culture. We review claims that between 1970 and 2005 American society fragmented along lines of cultural politics, social class, immigration, race, or lifestyle. Taking the twentieth century as historical context, we weigh evidence for both main variants of the fragmentation thesis-that there is an increasing divide between two Americas, or that America is fragmenting into a variety of 'little worlds that touch but do not interpenetrate.' We find a well-documented, widening gap in social class, whether measured by education or income. We also find that political elites and activists are demonstrably more polarized in 2005 than they were in 1970; this gap's effect on the electorate is debatable, however. Caveats aside, there is little evidence for increasing fragmentation of America along lines of race, ethnicity, or immigration status. American cultural tastes increasingly cluster into distinct lifeways, but there is little evidence about what effects, if any, this development has. The loudest claims of fragmentation, those concerning value issues, are based on the most contested evidence, but the widening gap between Americans by income and education-which receives less popular attention-is substantial and serious.

This article presents some prototypes of conflict situations that follow from different pathways to chaos. The substance of the conflicts can be extracted from empirical analysis using orbital decomposition (symbolic dynamics), nonlinear regression, or simulations, depending on the nature of the problem. Examples from the political science literature are presented. A distinction is also made between conflicts that are centered in chaos and those that are more similar to the hysteresis feature of catastrophe models., Introduction Nonlinear dynamical systems theory (NDS) consists of a group of mathematical concepts for explaining and predicting how events change over time and the interrelationships among those concepts. The primary [...]

Issue alignment and public opinion polarization in the U.S. are examined through National Election Studies (NES) data, with results showing that public opinion changes conform to party label resorting in voters. Other details on partisan realignment and deviations in American politics are discussed.

Previous research claims that the number of parties affects the representation of social cleavages in voting behavior, election turnout, patterns of political conflict, and other party system effects. This article argues that research typically counts the quantity of parties and that often the more important property is the quality of party competition--the polarization of political parties within a party system. The author first discusses why polarization is important to study. Second, the author provides a new measurement of party system polarization based on voter perceptions of party positions in the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, which includes more than 50 separate elections from established and developing democracies. Third, the author compares party polarization and party fractionalization as influences on cleavage-based and ideological voting and as predictors of turnout levels. The finding is that party polarization is empirically more important in explaining these outcomes. Keywords: party polarization; party fractionalization; turnout; voting

An argument that the partisan resurgence that occurred in the 1990s has continued through the 2004 election with an elite-level polarization is presented. It is concluded from data that party-image holders who are likely to vote and participate in campaigns are also likely to try to influence elite-level polarization and public opinions on party differences.

Failures of government policies often provoke opposite reactions from citizens; some call for a reversal of the policy, whereas others favor its continuation in stronger form. We offer an explanation of such polarization, based on a natural bimodality of preferences in political and economic contexts and consistent with Bayesian rationality. agreeing to disagree | Bayes' Theorem

We investigate the effects of fiscal transparency and political polarization on the prevalence of electoral cycles in fiscal balance. While some recent political economy literature on electoral cycles identifies such cycles mainly in weak and recent democracies, in contrast we show, conditioning on a new index of institutional fiscal transparency, that electoral cycles in fiscal balance are a feature of many advanced industrialized economies. Using a sample of 19 OECD countries in the 1990s, we identify a persistent pattern of electoral cycles in low(er) transparency countries, while no such cycles can be observed in high(er) transparency countries. Furthermore, we find, in accordance with recent theory, that electoral cycles are larger in politically more polarized countries.

The effect of polarization and interdependence on systemic conflict is studied. The two are considered as properties of system structure and an attempt is made to find empirical evidence that connects different types of interdependence to conflict and peace at the systemic level.

Starting from the polarisation (Sassen) versus professionalisation (Hamnett) discussion, the paper presents an analysis of the development of the Helsinki Metropolitan Region, the capital district of Finland. The analysis of new urban differentiation shows how modern ITC-based 'informational development' (Castells) seriously challenges the egalitarian basis of the Nordic welfare regime. The bimodal urban differentiation is not, however, regarded as a sign of polarisation, but rather as a new phase in economic development linked with a structural shift in the demand for labour that can result in very different outcomes in different cities and welfare regimes. In other words, both polarisation and professionalisation are interpreted as different versions or outcomes of a more fundamental structural shift combining both.