Escaping the Polarization Paradox: The Possibility, Desirability, and Pursuit of Bridging America's Political Divide

In this dissertation, I examine political depolarization as a social phenomenon in its own right. While much work is being done on this topic in terms of interventions to bring it about, it is important to step back and consider broader questions about it, such as how it is defined, how it is even possible in highly polarized times (a question I call the polarization paradox), who is interested in it, and who is working to bring it about. I answer these questions in a series of three substantive chapters. The first looks at the conditions of possibility around depolarization and argues that depolarization is only possible inasmuch as 1) there is a dimension of human personhood that exists beyond ideology and identity, and 2) the experience of personhood makes distinctive moral claims on us that challenge us to rethink where we stand on particular issues (ideological depolarization), who we feel most ethically responsible for (identity depolarization), and our way of being toward those who think or feel differently than us (affective depolarization). The second chapter proposes a new type and measure of polarization called “recognition polarization”—measured by accounting for patterns of missing data in feeling thermometers toward Democrats and Republicans—that uniquely explains disinterest in joining formal depolarization efforts when standard polarization measures do not. And lastly, the third chapter examines whether organizations that seek to bridge political divides directly are themselves as partisan and divided as other depolarization organizations who only contribute to bridging divides indirectly, and finds mixed evidence for this. Overall, I argue that depolarization ought to be understood in the positive, not just as the opposite of polarization, and that the ethics of personhood, the phenomenon of recognition, and the institutional logic of bridging can help us understand and escape the polarization paradox.