About

The Library of Partisan Animosity is a free resource for learning about partisan animosity for scholars, educators, students and practitioners. The library covers the top articles about polarization from 2000-present with a focus on the United States and future expansion to other countries.

One of the Lab’s top goals is to provide transparent and accessible research and information about topics of partisan animosity, including affective polarization, social trust and political violence. A breakdown in the dissemination of political science research to practitioners, media and citizens often occurs due to a lack of a centralized hub, inaccessible academic language and journal articles behind expensive paywalls. The Library of Partisan Animosity is the first-of-its-kind effort to bridge this gap by creating a free resource that is easy to navigate and clearly translates the key research and findings. 

Library summaries are written by academics with deep knowledge of American politics and research methodology while also using clear and accessible language.

The Library includes: 

  • Summaries of the top academic journal articles from the past 20 years on partisan animosity 
  • Links to the full journal article and citation information 
  • Links to replication data 
  • Information about the methodology and experiment(s) used in the paper

Apply to Write for the Library

The Polarization Research Lab believes in the transparency and accessibility of research and data, and we hope for our Lab and website to be a source of usable information and a repository for research on these topics outside of a paywall. 

This project will create readable short summaries for publications on partisan animosity. Stored on our website, users will be able to read and learn about affective polarization, democratic norms, political violence, etc. in one place. We imagine users will be academics and graduate students writing literature reviews, undergraduates and even high school students first learning about these topics, and practitioners. As such, the summaries need to be written in a way that can speak to this diverse audience. 

As an author, we ask that you use the style and format laid out below and commit to our tracking process. You will be paid $300 for each summary you satisfactorily complete. 

How to apply

  1. Find a set of five articles you would be willing to review (you can pick from this list or suggest one using the article criteria below).  We will pick one of your suggestions or work with you to identify an article from our list.
    1. Submit an application (it is short: your name, your preferred articles and a writing sample).
    2. Note: You can only work on one paper at a time.
    3. Note: You can only work on papers that you have not written.  You should not have worked with any of the authors of a paper you are summarizing within the last five years.

Author Formatting Guide

Each summary should contain the following information: 

  1. Article Title
  2. Article Author
  3. Journal
  4. Date Published
  5. Full Citation (APA style and .bib file) 
  6. Link to the article on the journal website
  7. Link to the article on the author’s website (if available)
  8. Primary tag (topic)
  • Affective_Polarization
  • Democratic_Norms
  • Political_Violence
  • Other (please write in)
  1. Summary (~300 words each). See below for more on the writing style. 
  • Introduction – what is the article about? What is the key question they are asking? Why are they asking this question? What questions are answered by this paper?
  • What analytical approach was used.  What were the design choices?  For all quantitative projects generate either a DAG (non-experimental designs) or a full table of all randomized conditions.
  • What are the main findings? How does this article add to our understanding of the topic? Make this punchy and clear. 
  • What are the implications of the research? Did this research introduce us to something new that needs to be studied further? Did it use new data or provide a new way of answering the question?
  • What questions identified by the authors were left unanswered? 

10. Pre-registration

Was the study and its analysis pre registered (Yes/No/published before 2015)

11. Polarization Proxies

Did the authors have to rely on proxy variables (i.e., if the author was interested in affective polarization of partisans did they use a standard measure or did they have to use something else because of limits in currently available data)? 

12. Were standard p-value thresholds used (p<.05 or 95% Confidence Intervals that don’t overlap zero). 

13. Were correlational results interpreted with causal language? 

14. Limitations/weaknesses 

15. Open Data

Is the data available? 

Link to replication data and scripts (if available). 

Writing Style 

The goals of the summaries are clarity, accessibility, and transparency. While academics may read these summaries, our target audience for the writing style and language is an undergraduate or advanced high school student. We want to remove academic jargon as much as possible, and explain concepts and findings using words that you might find in a textbook or well-researched newspaper article. If academic terms are critical for the summary, be sure to explain them and provide examples of what they mean. For example, you might say that “political elites” can include current and former elected officials. 

Citation Style 

APA and .bib file

Example: 

PETERSON, E., & KAGALWALA, A. (2021). When Unfamiliarity Breeds Contempt: How Partisan Selective Exposure Sustains Oppositional Media Hostility. American Political Science Review, 115(2), 585-598. doi:10.1017/S0003055420001124