“Politicians Will Boost Polarization as the Resources around the World Decrease”

Social polarization is constantly increasing, as the university researches show. We interviewed Pınar Akpınar, Istanbul Policy Center’s Conflict Resolution and Mediation programme expert, on how to prevent polarization and how civil societies and academicians can help. Indicating that the polarization is a global trend, she says “It is not a surprising thing. I think, as global resources and welfare levels decrease, politicians will boost polarization among the society. Because if you divide people into homogeneous groups, you can have more control over them and easily legalize one group’s domination on the others.”

Interview: Emine Uçak, 27 February 2018

Kadir Has ve Bilgi Universities have also conducted researches on social polarizations. What are your evaluations about the results in general?

Our research also shows the increasing of polarization in Turkey. However, interestingly, while groups that are close to government think that polarization is only seen among politicians, opponent groups think social base is also polarized. Kadir Has and Bilgi Universities’ quantitative researches also support this discovery. Shortly, there is polarization in Turkey and it is not only among the elites, it is also expanded into the base.

The most dramatic finding in Bilgi University’s research is that people are democrats only for themselves and can easily neglect other people’s rights. This is very dangerous because it triggers lynching culture and can easily be exploited by the authority. The society lacks co-existence culture. This stems from not becoming a proper society.

Media has a great role in boosting polarization as it is a very important ideological device. According to data scientist Ravi Iyer, falsified news is not the reason but is the symptom of polarization.