The science of polarisation: our model shows what happens when political opponents lose their personal connection

By Simon Schweighofer, Assistant Professor in Media and Communication, Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University

What do immigration, inheritance taxation and cannabis legalisation have in common? Not much, actually. Yet if we know somebody’s stance on one of these issues, we can make a good guess about their view on the others.

Politics often seems to work in one dimension: parties and politicians are located on a spectrum stretching from from far left to far right. Knowing someone’s opinion on a single wedge issue is often enough to place them on this ideological dimension, which in turn makes…

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