The Negative Effects Of Party Polarization On The Democratic Process

Party polarization is the process where political factions spatially align themselves ideologically in reference to other factions. In simpler terms, it is when parties pick sides on the current issues. Most if not all of the polarization effects occur when it is paired with other trends such as partisanship and fractionalization. While polarization can manifest itself in many ways in different political systems, the party polarization in the U.S. is what will be discussed here. Although polarization usually creates negative effects, in certain situations it can be very beneficial, but in the U.S.’s case specifically polarization is becoming a burden on the democratic process. In the U.S., party polarization between the current Democratic and Republican party began near the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Lee 278). Before this time, the

These can easily be seen in the U.S. legislature with the use of filibuster. When only a small portion of the population desires partisanship then legislators will have little reason besides personal belief to refuse to compromise, but if a large portion of representatives refuse to budge and are split, or polarized, on the topic then little can be done to progress or improve the discussion. These same unmoving individuals continue to be reelected, because they are satisfying their population’s desire for partisanship (Lee 170). Polarization by itself can also hinder the democratic process, because it can reduce the competitive nature of politics (Sørensen 430). It does so, because constituents would likely keep the “bad” politician in their party in power, instead of voting for the other party’s representative (Sørensen 432). This is especially true and troublesome in landside counties. By and large, polarization and partisanship reduce the effectiveness of competition and