scholarly journals The culture wars & political polarization in perspective : why polarization and its perturbations are a persistant [i.e., persistent] puzzle in political science

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald Michael Gooch
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Culture Wars ◽  
Political Polarization

On Ethnography

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. A. W. Rhodes
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Cultural Anthropology ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Culture Wars ◽  
Future Trends ◽  
Ethnographic Methods ◽  
Political Ethnography ◽  
New Methods ◽  
Simple Question ◽  
Hit And Run

Part II of the book turns to the genres of thought in the humanities and explores their relevance to political science. It asks the simple question ‘what can we learn?’ This chapter provides a basic introduction to ethnography for political scientists. It begins by distinguishing between naturalist and interpretive ethnography and between studying-down and studying-up, providing an example of each. Second, the chapter reviews the shared toolkit, focusing on fieldwork, participant observation, and ethnographic interviewing. Third, and at the heart of the chapter, it surveys the defining debates surrounding ethnographic methods arising from the ‘culture wars’ of the 1980s in cultural anthropology: the problems of representation, generalization, objectivity, explanation, and reflexivity. Finally, the chapter offers some comments on future trends in political ethnography, focusing on, for example, hit-and-run ethnography, and ‘new’ methods for recovering data.

Dalton and Putnam: Teaching Political Polarization to Generation Z Students

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Mark K. McBeth ◽  
Jules Belyea ◽  
Andrew Perry
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Cognitive Biases ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Science Classrooms ◽  
Robert Putnam ◽  
Generation Z ◽  
Generational Politics ◽  
Survey Results ◽  
Approach To Teaching ◽  
Micro Level

ABSTRACT Political polarization and generational politics are important topics in contemporary political science classrooms. This article presents an approach to teaching political polarization in an introduction to politics course. Coauthored by two Generation Z students from the course and their Boomer Generation professor, the article provides conflicting views of young people and politics as found in the work of Robert Putnam and Russell Dalton. The article presents survey data on affective and issue political polarization from the course, including discussion by the two student coauthors of the survey results interpreting their generation’s political polarization. The course approaches the introductory politics course using cognitive psychology concepts including confirmative bias, motivated reasoning, and other cognitive biases. Teaching from this micro-level perspective helps students to reflect on their own political biases. The article provides concepts and readings for political science professors to use in replicating the course.

Deep Disagreements and Political Polarization

2021 ◽  
pp. 226-243
Author(s):  
Jeroen de Ridder
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Feedback Loop ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Empirical Results ◽  
Deep Disagreement ◽  
Deep Disagreements

In deep disagreements, parties disagree about relatively fundamental underlying moral or epistemic principles and therefore see each other as less than fully rational or morally subpar. The chapter argues that deep disagreements lead to both cognitive and practical polarization, especially when they concern matters that are central to people’s social identities: deeply disagreeing parties will think less of each other and tend to treat each other worse. This, in turn, entrenches their disagreement even further, resulting in a vicious feedback loop. Support for the claims made here comes from both conceptual connections between deep disagreement and polarization as well as widely established empirical results in psychology and political science.

scholarly journals Online Intergroup Polarization Across Political Fault Lines: An Integrative Review

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ana-Maria Bliuc ◽  
Ayoub Bouguettaya ◽  
Kallam D. Felise
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
Social Identification ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Online Media ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
Theoretical Contribution ◽  
Collective Narratives ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
Fault Lines

We revisit the construct of political polarization and current distinctions between issue-driven and affective polarization. Based on our review of recent research on polarization from psychology, political science, and communication, we propose to treat polarization as a process that integrates the concepts of social identification (collective self-definition) with ideologically opposed camps - that is, psychological groups based on support or opposition to specific socio-political issues and policies (related to issue-driven polarization), and that of ideological and psychological distancing between groups (related to affective polarization). Furthermore, we discuss the foundations of polarizing groups – and more specifically, the role of conflicting collective narratives about social reality in providing an initial platform for polarization in a technologically networked world. In particular, we highlight the importance of online media in facilitating and enhancing polarization between ideologically opposed camps. As a theoretical contribution, the review provides a more functional conceptualization of polarization that can explain how polarization may occur across partisan fault lines and in domains outside of politics. We conclude with a discussion of new pathways to the study of polarization which this integrative conceptualization opens.

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