Replication Data for: A Group-Based Approach to Measuring Polarization

Despite polarization's growing importance in social science, its quantitative measurement has lagged behind its conceptual development. Political and social polarization are group-based phenomena characterized by intergroup heterogeneity and intragroup homogeneity, but existing measures capture only one of these features or make it difficult to compare across cases or over time. To bring the concept and measurement of polarization into closer alignment, I introduce the cluster-polarization coefficient (CPC), a measure of multimodality that allows scholars to incorporate multiple variables and compare across contexts with varying numbers of parties or social groups. Three applications to elite and mass polarization demonstrate that the CPC returns substantively sensible results, and an open-source software package implements the measure.

尽管极化（polarization）在社会科学领域的重要性与日俱增，但其量化测度的发展却滞后于概念层面的演进。政治极化与社会极化均为基于群体的现象，核心特征体现为群体间异质性与群体内同质性，但现有测度方法仅能捕捉其中一项特征，或是难以实现不同案例或跨时段的比较。为推动极化的概念与测度实现更紧密的契合，本文提出了集群极化系数（cluster-polarization coefficient, CPC）——一种针对多峰性的测度方法，可支持研究者纳入多变量分析，并能在拥有不同数量政党或社会群体的研究情境间进行比较。通过三项针对精英极化与大众极化的应用实例验证，证明CPC可得出具有实质合理性的结果；同时本文配套提供了实现该测度方法的开源软件包。