Democratic Resilience: Can the US Withstand Rising Polarization?

Session Submission Type: In-Person Full Paper Panel

Session Description

Although the dynamics of polarization have been widely studied, scholars have made less progress toward understanding either how it affects the health of democracy or the extent to which democratic political systems might prove resilient to it. This panel considers both questions, investigating whether polarization leads to democratic erosion and also what resources democratic systems may have to resist or overcome the negative effects of polarization. Can democracy maintain itself when it is exposed to the kind of intensified polarization that the United States, along with other democracies, has experienced in recent decades? To the extent that it can, we would describe that system as resilient.

Sub Unit

• Division 7: Politics and History

Individual Presentations

• How Democracies Endure: The Challenges of Polarization and Sources of Resilience - Robert C. Lieberman, Johns Hopkins University; Suzanne Mettler, Cornell University; Kenneth M. Roberts, Cornell University

• Polarization and the Durability of Madisonian Checks and Balances - Paul Pierson, University of California, Berkeley; Eric Schickler, University of California, Berkeley

• Cross-Cutting Cleavages, Political Institutions, and Democratic Resilience - Frances E. Lee, Princeton University

Chair

• Jamila D. Michener Cornell University

Discussants

• Lawrence R. Jacobs University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

• Steven Levitsky Harvard University

• Christopher S. Parker University of Washington