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A free scan shows the junk files, broken settings and background clutter dragging Windows down - then fixes them in one click.Free scan · Windows 10 & 11Political polarization is not one thing: it can mean widening differences over policies, growing hostility between political camps, or both. It persists through interacting forces—group identity, motivated thinking, communication environments, political networks and institutions—rather than one cause such as social media. These forces can reinforce one another, but policy disagreement and dislike of opponents are distinct outcomes.
What does political polarization mean?
Polarization describes political divisions, but the term covers different kinds of division. Researchers often distinguish ideological polarization from affective polarization. The first concerns what people or parties believe; the second concerns how they feel about the opposing camp.
| Type | What is divided? | What it does not establish by itself |
|---|---|---|
| Ideological or issue polarization | Policy positions or political ideology. In a review of US politics, Layman, Carsey and Horowitz (2006) describe growing division between the two major parties across policy dimensions as “conflict extension.” | That every voter has moved to an extreme, or that ordinary supporters of opposing parties personally dislike one another. |
| Affective polarization | Feelings toward the opposing political camp, including dislike, distrust and reluctance to socialize across party lines. Iyengar and colleagues (2019) use the term for animosity between parties. | That the camps necessarily hold more distant policy positions. |
The distinctions matter because parties can become more aligned with particular issue positions—a process often called sorting—without every person becoming more ideologically extreme. Likewise, strong policy disagreement does not automatically mean strong personal hostility. Party-level changes, individual opinion and feelings between citizens should be considered separately.
Who is polarized: parties and leaders, or fellow citizens?
A further distinction is the target of people’s feelings. Vertical affective polarization means citizens’ attitudes toward political parties or elites. Horizontal affective polarization means their attitudes toward fellow citizens associated with the other camp. A person may judge opposing politicians differently from ordinary voters who support them.
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These outcomes are related questions, not interchangeable measures. Kogel and Zinnatullin’s 2026 review found that relatively few studies examined how citizens’ feelings toward parties or elites and toward fellow citizens interact. A claim about hostility to political leaders therefore cannot automatically be treated as a claim about everyday social relations.
Why can political polarization persist?
No single explanation accounts for persistence. A 2026 systematic review by Kogel and Zinnatullin concludes that the literature points to interaction among psychological, identity-based, media and institutional mechanisms. The evidence supports several ways these forces may reinforce divisions, while leaving open exactly how they combine in particular places and periods.
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Partisan identity turns disagreement into a group boundary
Political affiliation can become part of a person’s social identity. When that happens, a dispute may be interpreted not only as a clash over policy but also as a test of loyalty, status or threat to one’s group. People may feel solidarity with their own camp and evaluate the opposing camp negatively. Iyengar and colleagues’ 2019 review identifies this identity role as central to understanding affective polarization.
Motivated thinking can protect prior beliefs and group loyalties
People do not always evaluate political information in a detached way. They may defend beliefs they already hold or beliefs associated with their in-group. Jost, Baldassarri and Druckman (2022) describe “ego-justifying and group-justifying motives” that lead people to defend prior and in-group beliefs. This helps explain how disagreement can endure even when people encounter contrary arguments.
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Perceptions of the other side can also matter. Kogel and Zinnatullin’s 2026 review discusses distorted impressions and biased information processing as possible parts of affective polarization. This does not mean policy conflicts are imaginary; it means that perceptions of opponents can add emotional distance beyond the underlying policy disagreement.
Communication environments shape exposure and reaction
Messages, sources and channels can affect how people encounter and respond to political information. The 2022 conceptual review by Jost and colleagues treats social-communicative contexts as part of the mechanisms behind polarization. The 2026 review likewise identifies media and information environments as a major family of explanations, while calling for stronger evidence on how they interact with identity and psychological predispositions.
It is therefore too simple to say that social media causes polarization. Media use takes place alongside prior beliefs, group identities, interpersonal networks and political events. The available synthesis does not establish one platform or communication channel as a sufficient, universal cause.
Networks, elections and institutions can amplify everyday choices
Political attitudes and communication choices do not occur in isolation. People may choose congenial information, avoid opponents or signal loyalty; across networks, such choices can accumulate. Election cycles and institutions can interact with those networks and with existing hostility, helping divisions persist or intensify. Kogel and Zinnatullin frame polarization as an emergent process involving many interdependent choices, rather than a guaranteed result of any one person’s behavior.
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The review identifies institutional and socioeconomic factors among possible driver families, but finds comparatively thin research coverage of these mechanisms. Their inclusion in a framework should not be mistaken for a settled estimate of how much each factor contributes.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What does the evidence establish—and what remains uncertain?
Kogel and Zinnatullin’s systematic review, published online August 26, 2026, covers causal-driver research published from 2012 through 2025. Its counts describe the review’s selected literature, not the number of polarized people or the degree of polarization in a population.
| What the review counted | Reported result | How to interpret it |
|---|---|---|
| Peer-reviewed studies in the review | 135 studies | The size of the selected research corpus. |
| Study designs | 44.4% cross-sectional associative; 28.9% experimental; 20.0% panel; 3.0% quasi-experimental; 3.7% other | Shares of the review’s corpus. The predominance of associative studies and scarcity of quasi-experimental designs limit what can be concluded about causes. |
| Geographic focus | 58 US-focused studies; 22 cross-national studies | The literature is US-centered; these counts do not show how common polarization is in either setting. |
| Outcome focus | 57 studies of horizontal outcomes; 53 of vertical outcomes; 23 of both | The review’s papers examined different targets of political feeling; the counts do not measure the relative importance of those targets in real life. |
Cross-sectional association can show that factors vary together, but does not by itself show that one caused the other. Experiments, panels and quasi-experimental studies offer different ways to investigate cause and change, yet designs answer different questions and do not remove every limitation. The review authors call for stronger causal identification and more work on how drivers combine, including whether media environments amplify identity-based or psychological predispositions, and how institutional shocks interact with existing hostility.
Because the evidence base is concentrated on the United States, its findings should not be treated as a universal account. Party systems, media environments and institutions differ across countries; the 2026 review includes cross-national research but describes the wider literature as US-centered. These reviews also do not provide a single current, directly comparable population statistic that would support a claim about how polarized people are today.
Quick Recap
How to read claims about polarization
- Check what is being measured: policy positions, feelings toward parties and elites, or feelings toward fellow citizens.
- Check the level of analysis: a change between parties does not automatically describe every voter.
- Check the evidence type: a correlation is not, on its own, proof of cause.
- Check the scope: evidence centered on the United States may not transfer unchanged to other political systems.
- Be wary of single-cause explanations. The recent review emphasizes interacting mechanisms and says evidence about those interactions remains limited.
Sources
- Shanto Iyengar, Yphtach Lelkes, Matthew Levendusky, Neil Malhotra and Sean J. Westwood, “The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization in the United States” (2019), Annual Review of Political Science 22:129–146.
- John T. Jost, Delia S. Baldassarri and James N. Druckman, “Cognitive–motivational mechanisms of political polarization in social-communicative contexts” (2022), Nature Reviews Psychology 1:560–576.
- Manuel Josef Kogel and Aidar Zinnatullin, “What drives affective polarization? A systematic literature review” (published online August 26, 2026), European Political Science.
- Geoffrey C. Layman, Thomas M. Carsey and Juliana Menasce Horowitz, “Party Polarization in American Politics: Characteristics, Causes, and Consequences” (2006), Annual Review of Political Science 9:83–110.
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