The Polarization Research Lab is a research group and resource hub dedicated to applying science to the study of polarization and democracy. Founded on more than a decade of research by Sean Westwood at Dartmouth College and Yphtach Lelkes at the University of Pennsylvania, PRL advances the study of partisan animosity by collecting data, testing new ideas through rigorous science, and sharing the data and findings with others. Our network includes scholars across social science disciplines, post-doctoral fellows, graduate students, and researchers around the world as well as our funders and practitioner partners.

We believe that political elites and partisan media and social media drive the polarization that we see today. Our research seeks to connect the rhetoric and actions of representatives to the attitudes of citizens. By identifying the pathways through which antidemocratic communication among political elites influences public sentiment, we aim to provide a deeper understanding of the causes and consequences of democratic backsliding. We collect and analyze the rhetoric of elected officials every day. With a dataset eventually covering 7,700 state elected officials and 535 federal officials, we will compare rhetoric across districts, states, and levels of office to examine who are those elected officials stoking partisan conflict versus those focusing on policy issues and constructive debate. With these data, we strive to foster a political culture that values civil debates, effective governance, and accountability, ultimately contributing to the health and vibrancy of our democratic institutions.

We also track polarization across America by conducting a first-of-its-kind, coordinated survey of Americans and providing that information to anyone in real-time. The Lab fields 1,000 survey interviews each week tracking affective polarization, support for democratic norm violations, and support for political violence in the United States. This allows us to look at how citizen attitudes change in response to real world events and allows us to identify any troubling changes in anti-democratic trends, which can be accessed and visualized on the Lab’s dashboard. We also work with researchers around the world through a free RFP to test hypotheses and interventions about partisan animosity to help us better understand what causes polarization and subsequently what may help reduce tensions. We have expanded our work to Brazil, Germany, India, Israel, and Poland, which will allow us to learn if the U.S. is an outlier or if the problems in our country are endemic to democratic systems.

The Lab also provides a clearinghouse for evidence-based approaches to dealing with and understanding partisan animosity. This is particularly critical as most work is paywalled and written by academics for other academics, leaving practitioners and non-statistical experts unable to get the most from the best work. We draft briefs on work on polarization with laypersons’ language, objective credibility criteria, and open access on our Library of Partisan Animosity.