ABSTRACT
The dynamics driving polarization and increasingly irreconcilable policy stances are unlikely to change in the twenty-first century. Increasing economic uncertainty, inequality and globalization provide a potent environment for a hardening of partisan attitudes to core policy questions – vulnerability has always been good ground for simple-minded populist approaches to complex problems. Indeed, the kind of political polarization already well identified in the United States, polarization operating at both the level of public opinion and within the formal institutions of governance, makes it harder to deal with some of the most pressing policy challenges confronting states. In conclusion, despite the polarizing elections of 2016, including Donald Trump's surprising "populist" victory in the United States and the unexpected "Brexit" vote in the United Kingdom, there is no reason to assume that a rising tide of simplistic, diametrically opposed policy positions, backed by hardening partisan identification, necessarily undermines effective governance.
