DEPOLARIZE: Affective Polarization and Democratic Attitudes
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Dr. Aytaç’s action aims to examine how affective polarization, defined as individuals’ increasing levels of antipathy, distrust and negative feelings towards supporters of opposing political parties, affects democratic attitudes. DEPOLARIZE will establish whether there is a causal relationship between affective polarization and changes in democratic attitudes using novel empirical approaches. The project will also identify reliable and generalizable interventions to reduce affective polarization in multiple contexts. In this way, the research will address the question of whether affective polarization has a corrosive impact on democratic governance by fostering anti-democratic attitudes in society.
``My research interests lie in political behavior with a focus on electoral accountability and political participation. My work has been published in the American Political Science Review, Journal of Politics, British Journal of Political Science, and Comparative Political Studies, among others. I am the co-author (with Susan Stokes) of Why Bother? Rethinking Participations in Elections and Protests (Cambridge, 2019).``