Old and New Polarization: Democracy, Elections and Conflict in Mexico

Abstract

Any examination of contemporary Mexican politics quickly alludes to an age-old concept of renewed descriptive and analytical significance: polarization. The widespread diagnosis rests, more or less explicitly, on three pillars: first, political polarization has been on the rise in Mexico in recent years; second, while the phenomenon may have antecedents, there is something distinct about today’s polarization; third, the new polarization poses a problem for democracy and the functioning of the political system, potentially even contaminating daily social interaction among citizens.

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