PhD Review: Friends or Foes, Does Polarisation Really Undermine Democracy? Understanding the Two-Way Relationship Between Polarisation Dynamics and the Processes and Institutions of Democratic Contestation

Abstract

This is a review of Kamil Bernaerts’s dissertation "Friends or foes: does polarisation really undermine democracy?". I argue that the thesis offers a conceptually rich and empirically ambitious examination of the relationship between polarisation and the health of democracy. By distinguishing different types of polarisation and examining both individual-level mechanisms and institutional contexts, the thesis demonstrates that not all forms of polarisation are equally harmful to democracy.