This year, the Symposium team presented Polarized Then, Polarized Now: The U.S. 10 Years Later, virtually over Zoom on Thursday, March 3, 2022, and Friday, March 4, 2022. 2021 proved to be one of the most politically polarized in our nation’s history. The goal of the 2022 Symposium was to map the progression of that polarization over the last decade. The Symposium also represented a ten-year retrospective on the 2011 Symposium, “Partisanship in Congress: Polarization and the Political Process.”
The 2022 Symposium consisted of three diverse panels. The first panel, Polarization at the State and Local Level focused on the role of polarization in state and local government systems, and the influence that polarization has on sub-national policy. The event featured Mayor Adrian Perkins of Shreveport, Louisiana, and Mayor Sam Liccardo of San Jose, California. The second panel, Polarization: The Technological Perspective, focused on the role of changing communication and electoral technology on polarization in the United States across all levels of government. The event hosted Damon Centola, the Elihu Katz Professor of Communications, Sociology, and Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, Yanna Krupnikov, author and professor at Stony Brook University, and Neta Kligler-Vilenchik, the Professor of Communication and Journalism at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The final panel, Polarization 10 Years Later, focused on evaluating changes in polarization trends since the 2011 Symposium and the implications for future U.S. politics and governance. The Journal was honored to welcome back speakers from the previous symposium event, Nathaniel Persily, the James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford University, Tom Rosenstiel, Senior Lecturer at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism, and David King, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Many thanks to our Symposium team, Daniel Montoya, Zachary Goldstein, and Jordan Hittesdorf, for organizing such a fascinating event!
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