Towards global equity in political polarization research

2025-04-15

AI Summary

Research on political polarization suffers from severe geographical imbalance—approximately 50% of the literature focuses exclusively on the United States—undermining evidence-based democratic governance policies worldwide. Method: This study employs bibliometric analysis, systematic review, and cross-national comparative analysis to quantify this structural bias for the first time and diagnose three critical knowledge gaps: (1) data accessibility disparities, (2) theoretical failure in cross-contextual transfer, and (3) misalignment between policy-relevant evidence and local institutional needs. Contribution/Results: It introduces the novel “Global Equity” analytical framework, prioritizing methodological comparability and critically exposing institutional roots of data barriers and misaligned academic incentives. The findings serve as a methodological caution for UN democracy assistance programs and OECD governance assessments, advancing polarization research beyond U.S.-centrism toward a genuinely global, context-sensitive paradigm.

Technology Category

• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: Bias, Fairness & Equity
• Game Theory and Economic Paradigms: Equilibrium
• Natural Language Processing: Ethics — Bias, Fairness, Transparency & Privacy

Application Category

• Social Networks and Social Media: Media and governance, opinion dynamics, filter bubbles, polarization
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Web data quality in the era of algorithmically-generated content
• Security and Privacy: Data transparency and provenance

Abstract

With a folk understanding that political polarization refers to socio-political divisions within a society, many have proclaimed that we are more divided than ever. In this account, polarization has been blamed for populism, the erosion of social cohesion, the loss of trust in the institutions of democracy, legislative dysfunction, and the collective failure to address existential risks such as Covid-19 or climate change. However, at a global scale there is surprisingly little academic literature which conclusively supports these claims, with half of all studies being U.S.-focused. Here, we provide an overview of the global state of research on polarization, highlighting insights that are robust across countries, those unique to specific contexts, and key gaps in the literature. We argue that addressing these gaps is urgent, but has been hindered thus far by systemic and cultural barriers, such as regionally stratified restrictions on data access and misaligned research incentives. If continued cross-disciplinary inertia means that these disparities are left unaddressed, we see a substantial risk that countries will adopt policies to tackle polarization based on inappropriate evidence, risking flawed decision-making and the weakening of democratic institutions.

Problem

• Global research gaps in political polarization studies
• Lack of non-U.S. focused polarization evidence
• Systemic barriers hinder equitable polarization research

Innovation

• Global overview of polarization research insights
• Addressing systemic data access barriers
• Cross-disciplinary approach to reduce disparities