
Polarization in the third sense has skyrocketed with interparty animosity more intense now than it has been for the past 25 years. Nonetheless, Americans believe that their policy divisions are especially pronounced. In fact, on certain hot-button issues such as abortion and gay rights, rank-and-file citizens who identify with a political party have moved closer together.
parties are severely polarized along the first two dimensions, the American public is no more divided now over policy than it was 30 years ago. Research suggests that, although the major U.S. It tracks the extent to which citizens dislike affiliates of other parties. This definition of polarization concerns how many of the party’s officials are “moderates” or bridge-builders.Ī third involves neither platforms nor officials, but instead the emotions of ordinary citizens who affiliate with a political party. Polarization is the extent to which these are opposed.Ī second assesses each party’s ideological homogeneity. One compares the platforms of competing parties. But this intuitive idea is not so simple, as political scientists have at least three ways of measuring political distance. Start with the obvious: Polarization is the political distance separating partisans.
‘Like a magnet, the crystal retains the polarization when the field is turned off.My 2019 book, “Overdoing Democracy,” argued that polarization isn’t about where you get your news or how politicians are divided – it’s about how a person’s political identity is wrapped up with almost everything they do. ‘The electrons that were produced in the decays were found to be emitted preferentially in the opposite direction to the polarization of the nucleus.’. ‘This quantity describes the state of order, such as the local magnetic polarization of a ferromagnet, as it develops at each point in the material.’. ‘Linear polarization is critical for triggering chemical reactions or for studying the orientation of atoms and molecules when they are absorbed on a surface.’.
‘It is not well understood how these are coordinated with changes in morphology, such as cell movement, shape change, and polarization.’. ‘This mechanism is likely to involve the polarization of key components and the localized breakdown of existing cell wall structure.’. ‘Excess nickel has a negative effect on plasma membrane polarization, ion uptake and translocation, cell mitotic activity, and carbon partitioning in roots.’. ‘The proposed mechanism for breakage of the actomyosin cortex may be used for cell polarization.’. ‘The protein polarization was dominated by atomic rearrangements.’. ‘The solvent and the electronic polarization of the protein are treated by a dielectric continuum model.’. ‘In principle, optical polarization changes can result from birefringence, dichroism, scattering, and also reflection.’. ‘With this type of supernova, there was no convincing evidence of any polarization-at best, less than 0.3 per cent polarization.’. ‘He saw that there were two populations with markedly different degrees of polarization.’. ‘Vertical polarization in one component of a beam of light is cancelled if another component is polarized at right angles to it.’. ‘They analyzed the polarization of various parts of the supernova's spectrum, beginning immediately after its discovery in September 2001.’. ‘Light emitted along the longer axis shows a net excess of a particular polarization.’. ‘The telescope in Chile was used to measure the polarization of light emitted by the supernova as it brightened and dimmed.’. ‘The polarization was likely due to the interaction of high-speed ejecta from the explosion.’.
‘If the dust cloud or explosion is spherical and uniformly smooth, all orientations are equally represented and the net polarization is zero.’.‘The sunglasses 'measure' horizontal polarization when they block some of the light reflected from flat surfaces.’.