How should we study party polarization in Europe?
Happy to share that our paper on *multidimensional* polarization is now out @bjpols.bsky.social! (more 👇)
Happy to share that our paper on *multidimensional* polarization is now out @bjpols.bsky.social! (more 👇)
Reposted from
British Journal of Political Science
NEW -
Multidimensional Party Polarization in Europe: Cross-Cutting Divides and Effective Dimensionality - cup.org/4gLJspU
- @jellekoedam.bsky.social, Garret Binding & @mrsteenbergen.bsky.social
Multidimensional Party Polarization in Europe: Cross-Cutting Divides and Effective Dimensionality - cup.org/4gLJspU
- @jellekoedam.bsky.social, Garret Binding & @mrsteenbergen.bsky.social
Comments
European party systems are complex, fragmented, and structured by multiple ideological divides (e.g., economic + cultural)
⚠️ Summing up individual polarization scores assumes dimensional independence
➡️ We need an alternative approach!
-- Dimensions can collapse into 1D polarization (see PT)
-- Dimensions can be orthogonal and produce 2D polarization (see NL)
🚨 Reinforcing vs. cross-cutting polarization have different consequences for democracy!
✅ Simple, intuitive, and easily extended to any type or number of dimensions
More to come soon, including code to easily use our measures yourself!