Polarization stokes incendiary rhetoric despite risk of breeding extremism and violence
The perceptible decline of political ethics in many democracies, coupled with hyperpartisanship, is fostering incivility in discourse and greater discord. This, in turn, is hardening political polarization and stoking incendiary rhetoric, despite risks of it breeding extremism and violence.
The spotlight on the attempted assassination of former U.S. President Donald Trump, who has gone from being an alleged promoter of political violence to a victim of it, should not obscure the fact that toxic discourse has become a central challenge for democracies from Europe and North America to Asia.
In polarized times, the national discourse often reeks of partisanship and pettifoggery. Fake news, conspiracy theories and fear-mongering, meanwhile, have become common, thanks to the reach of social media and the eroding objectivity of the mainstream media.
Worse still, tolerance for opposing political views is now increasingly in short supply. In fact, rival political forces have self-segregated themselves into their own ideological silos, unwilling to have dialogue across the deep divide. Distrust, contempt and anger define such broken politics.
Without the inflammatory political rhetoric giving way to civil discourse, democratic challenges will likely intensify, possibly tipping into violence.
The crisis of democracies has come ominously at a time when authoritarians are on the march, resulting in a decline in global freedoms. An estimated 72% of the world’s population now lives in autocracies.
The coarsening of public discourse and the strengthening of divisive politics in democracies are rooted in increasing polarization, with rival political parties or leaders peddling disinformation and denouncing each other as “extremist” or a “threat” to democracy. Political opponents are targeted by whatever means possible, as they are seen not as rivals but as enemies.
The fever of polarizing politics also persists because the quality of political leadership has declined across the democratic world. Instead of advancing political compromise and national unity, many leaders have fanned the embers of divisive politics.
The larger threat from bitterly polarized politics was laid bare in May when Prime Minister Robert Fico of Slovakia was shot multiple times at close range by a gunman. Fico’s allies accused his liberal opponents of creating the atmosphere for the assassination bid, just as Republicans in the U.S. have blamed what they say is inflammatory rhetoric from President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign for the attempt to kill Trump.
Police officers stand next to police vehicles outside the hospital where Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was taken after a shooting incident in Handlova, Slovakia on May 17. © Reuters
The attempt on Trump’s life occurred in the context of a poisonous U.S. political environment, which is accelerating the decline of political and legal norms and even degrading institutions. An earlier poll found that more than two-thirds of Americans believe U.S. democracy is broken.
The left’s surge in the recent British and French elections may have bucked the rightward trend in European politics but it has underscored the intensifying polarization in Europe, whose widening political divides threaten to resurrect the violent ghosts of its past. Internal divisions have produced political gridlock in France, which is looking nearly ungovernable at present.
Extreme polarization is also blighting a number of non-Western democracies, ranging from Brazil and South Africa to Israel and South Korea.
In India, for example, hyperpartisan politics have been plumbing new depths, poisoning national discourse, widening internal fault lines and threatening to tear it apart.
The narrow victory that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party secured in the recent election is fueling greater polarization by emboldening a reenergized opposition. This is redolent of how the U.S. emerged more divided and polarized from the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. The BJP, in fact, has accused the opposition of inciting violence against Modi by using rhetoric similar to that which it says led to the attack on Trump.
By weighing down the world’s largest democracy, India’s debilitating polarization has made it virtually impossible to build consensus on tackling national challenges. By fanning hate and fear, divisive politics in India has even triggered riots in recent years, including over farm reform bills and passage of a legal amendment to grant citizenship to refugees who fled religious persecution from neighboring Islamic countries.
With the Indian discourse no longer about contending ideas, political parties openly pander to class, caste, ethnic and sectarian interests, thereby deepening the divides in society.
Against this backdrop, dealing with the broader crisis of democracies has become imperative. The crisis is fostering low public trust in governments.
The choice for democracies is to stay mired in polarized politics, with venomous discourse stoking hate and violence, or move toward national healing and unity. Today, every important democracy needs to be led by a unifier and not by a divider.
By keeping partisan warfare in check, divided democracies will be able to embrace traditions of pragmatic accommodation. But if little is done to transcend hardened polarization and heal the deep splits in democracies, national institutions could begin to decay, raising the specter of civil unrest.
The essence of democracy is that political battles are settled at the ballot box, not on the streets. It is time to move past the politics of polarization and vituperation.
Uncivil discourse must cease to help extinguish uncivil war. A little respect for political opponents would go a long way in lowering the temperature on partisan conflicts and helping to begin the process of reconciliation and healing.
Brahma Chellaney, a professor of strategic studies at the independent, New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research and fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin, is the author of nine books, including “Water: Asia’s New Battleground” (Georgetown University Press), which won the Bernard Schwartz Award.
Stagecraft and Statecraft 