Populism is defined as a political mentality' that construes society as an ongoing struggle between “the corrupt elites” and “the noble people” (Mudde & Kaltwasser, 2017). As a case in point, throughout the EU electoral support for relatively' moderate left-wing parties (e.g., social democrats) and moderate right-wing parties (e.g., Christian democrats) has dropped in the past few decades, whereas support for relatively radical parties at the left and right has increased (Krouwel, 2012).Ī closely related, yet conceptually distinct, manifestation of political polarization is populism. Such preference for relatively radical political parties may suggest that societies indeed are polarizing. While the term political extremism often is used in reference to underground - and sometimes violent - extremist groups, it is also commonly used in reference to regular citizens who ideologically are at the edges of the political spectrum, and vote accordingly (e.g., EU socialist parties at the political left, or anti-immigration parties at the political right). One example is through political extremism, which refers to the extent to which people polarize into, and strongly identify with, generic left- or right-wing ideological outlooks on society' (Van Prooijen & Krouwel, 2019). Political polarization can manifest itself in various ways. Political polarization thus fuels a perception of society as a struggle between “us versus them,” and may yield high levels of mutual conflict between ideologically opposing groups (e.g., liberals versus conservatives in the US). A working definition of political polarization, therefore, is the extent to which citizens become ideologically entrenched in their own values and political beliefs, thereby increasing the divide with citizens who hold different values and political beliefs. Accordingly, political beliefs that people endorse with strong moral conviction are relatively difficult to change, drive behavior in significant ways, and form the basis of intolerance towards competing views (Skitka, 2010). In general, strong attitudes tend to be relatively resistant to social influence, stable over time, and influential on cognition and behavior (Howe & Krosnick, 2017). At the core of political polarization is the extent to which citizens hold strong and moralized attitudes about political and societal issues.

Policy gridlock definition