Table2_Polarization: What Do We Know and What Can We Do About It?.docx

Polarization is not new in Europe. Looking at electoral support for radical political forces after the Second World War, one can observe how polarization has been on the rise since the 1960s. Still, it is in the 1990s, with the thaw of European party systems and the subsequent emergence of (populist) radical parties, that the percentage of votes for anti-political establishment parties reached unprecedented levels. In this article, we not only show the general (country-level) picture but also highlight both the consequences and causes of polarization, proposing at the same time some potential remedies to combat it. Using an aggregate, longitudinal unique dataset, containing 47 European countries across more than 170 years from 1848 to 2020 (Casal Bértoa, 2021; Casal Bértoa and Enyedi, 2021), we try to shed light here on the perils of polarization for the quality of democracy, how traditional political parties are to be blamed, and how we can tackle the problem.

政治极化在欧洲并非新现象。通过审视二战后激进政治力量的选举支持情况，可观察到自20世纪60年代以来，政治极化态势便持续攀升。不过直至20世纪90年代，随着欧洲政党体系的解冻以及随后（民粹主义）激进政党的出现，反建制政党的得票率才达到前所未有的水平。本文不仅呈现了整体（国家层面）的极化图景，同时剖析了政治极化的成因与后果，并就此提出若干可用于应对该问题的潜在治理方案。本研究依托一套独特的聚合型纵向数据集，该数据集覆盖1848年至2020年共计170余年间的47个欧洲国家（Casal Bértoa, 2021；Casal Bértoa与Enyedi, 2021），旨在阐明政治极化对民主质量构成的危害、传统政党应承担的责任，以及解决该问题的可行路径。