What to do about polarization? Evaluating the evidence base of recommendations for depolarization

The flourishing research on polarization abounds with more or less explicit calls for depolarization and includes various recommendations for how to depolarize, prompting questions about both the evidence base and the normative assumptions guiding the scholars’ conclusions. To assess both, we conducted a systematic literature review of social science literature on (de)polarization. Our findings reveal that most scholarship focuses on polarization, neglecting a systematic examination of depolarization. Although studies do provide evidence for both some factors that drive polarization and depolarization, the recommendations explicitly endorsed by the researchers remain disconnected from the empirical evidence provided in their studies. Recommendations seem to be more closely linked to normative assumptions about desirable ways of communicating, envisioning societies that align with deliberative democracy. We call for making both the normative and evidence base of one’s conclusions more explicit and reflect the connection between the two.