Taking the Pulse of Global Partisan Animosity in the US, Brazil, India, Israel, Germany and Poland
UPDATE: A paper by Sean Westwood received the Cozzarelli Prize for Class V: Behavioral and Social Sciences, one of six disciplinary categories of the National Academy of Sciences. See video at the end of this post.
Measuring How Political Messages Shape Public Attitudes
In this Stories of Impact podcast episode, Dr. Sean Westwood, Associate Professor of Government at Dartmouth College and director of the Polarization Research Lab, explores the nature and consequences of political polarization in the United States and globally.
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As part of his TWCF-supported research project, Taking the Pulse of Global Partisan Animosity, Dr. Westwood gathered a multidisciplinary cohort of scientists from across the globe to examine whether the dynamics of partisan animosity are particular to any individual country or whether trends are responding to cross-national forces, such as economic trends, global pandemics, or new technologies.
In Westwood’s research, the term "partisan animosity" is meant to capture several related features of political division, including affective polarization, declining social trust, tolerance for violations of democratic norms, and support for political violence. His lab uses machine learning to analyze large datasets drawn from television news, official communications from elected officials, social media, and other sources, helping researchers examine how the words and actions of political leaders may shape citizens’ attitudes over time.
In the US, he and his team have interviewed 140,000 individuals, and globally 25,000 individuals have been interviewed in Brazil, Germany, India, Israel, and Poland. Westwood explains that these countries were purposefully selected to represent different regions and political systems: Germany as a stable democracy post–World War II, Poland as a nascent democracy recovering from communism, and Brazil and India as nations with histories of military coups and significant political violence, while Israel faces ongoing military conflict.
Westwood finds that American polarization is primarily "affective polarization," characterized by emotional rather than ideological divisions. Most Americans strongly favor their own party and oppose the other, often without deep issue awareness. "The really surprising thing globally is that Americans are much more polarized on affective lines than other citizens, but that does not manifest with higher levels of support for democratic norm violations and political violence," Westwood says. Support for political violence remains relatively low in the US. His research shows it's at just 2%, compared to places like India, where it reaches 20%. Westwood attributes this to America’s long democratic tradition and unusual two-party system. “In other countries... multi-party states make it much harder to identify a singular opposition, and as a consequence, makes it much harder to hate just a single group of individuals for their partisan affiliations.”
Addressing the January 6th Capitol attack in the US, Westwood calls it “an outlier... but still one worthy of a lot of attention.” He’s troubled not only by the incident itself but by how it’s been “rehabilitated or redefined” as patriotic protest by Donald Trump and media figures. “Is it an example of really troubling political violence? Yeah, absolutely. Is it an example of an isolated event that has not led to future events? I think also, yeah, absolutely.” While there was potential for escalation, “we just didn’t see that,” he says. It wasn’t “a watershed moment” or “an inflection point where the public starts to become more violent.”
Still, Westwood warns against assuming American democracy is immune to decline. In contrast to the US, countries like Germany, Israel, and India have more organized extremist groups and higher public support for violence. His research finds that “there are places where a coordination structure is in place and where public support is much higher,” he notes, “and I think both of those things are a consequence of observing political violence, but also a cause of future political violence.”
He emphasizes that democratic erosion doesn’t happen overnight. “The only clear, bright line for me is if we stop holding free and open elections and then we stop the transition of power,” he says. While court defiance and politically motivated investigations are alarming, they don’t yet mark democracy’s end. But they are serious warning signs, he cautions.
Ultimately, Westwood believes preserving democracy requires leadership. “Americans aren’t demanding anti-democratic behavior... it’s in fact much more of a top-down process.” Leaders must model and champion democratic values. “The key is to try to convince the public to vote on democracy — or even more importantly, that democracy is what matters.”
Though challenges exist, Westwood remains cautiously optimistic. “The point of studying this is to understand how bad things are, and to ensure that things aren't getting worse,” he explains. “The solution is really hard… to be willing to say, ‘I'm going to vote for someone, potentially from the other party, who is more committed to democracy than a member of my own party who's very much committed to the dissolution of democracy.’ That's a really hard ask... but that's the path forward.”
Find out more about the related TWCF-supported research project.
Learn about TWCF's Listening & Learning in a Polarized World priority.
The “Stories of Impact” podcast explores cutting-edge research at the intersection of spirituality and science. With a grant from TWCF, performer, and producer Tavia Gilbert and her team at Talkbox Productions craft each episode, adapting interviews conducted by journalist Richard Sergay his award-winning video series of the same name into immersive audio stories. The podcast has received multiple honors, including the American Writing Awards’ Science Podcast of the Year.
Also from Sean Westwood: AI and the Future of Online Surveys
In related work, Dr. Sean Westwood recently received the 2025 Cozzarelli Prize for his PNAS article, The potential existential threat of large language models to online survey research. The Cozzarelli Prize is awarded annually to six PNAS articles recognized for outstanding scientific excellence and originality. Westwood’s study received the prize for Class V: Behavioral and Social Sciences.
As Westwood explains in the above video, the study explores how autonomous AI agents may affect the reliability of online survey research by producing coherent responses, maintaining demographic personas, evading many existing detection methods, and potentially biasing polling results.
While distinct from the TWCF-supported project featured in this Stories of Impact episode, the paper connects to Westwood’s broader research on public opinion, democratic stability, and the tools researchers use to understand public attitudes.
