Date of Completion

2022

Document Type

Honors College Thesis

Department

Political Science

Thesis Type

Honors College

First Advisor

Peter VonDoepp

Keywords

polarization, democracy, elections, United States, Europe, Turkey

Abstract

The salience of political polarization has increased rapidly in the last few years as this phenomenon has infiltrated countries across the globe, including the United States. A potential consequence of polarization is democratic decay, or the gradual transition of democracies into more autocratic regimes. Remedies proposed by scholars include electoral system reforms, inclusive rhetorical strategies, and civic dialogue initiatives, among others. This thesis investigates institutional and political remedies, relying on both quantitative and qualitative analyses, to determine whether these approaches to depolarization are effective in practice. The findings are applied to the US case.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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