Abstract: This paper challenges the dominant narrative that attributes contemporary political polarization in Western democracies primarily to digital technologies and social media, arguing instead that its main root lies in structural socioeconomic polarization, in particular the sustained rise of economic and political inequality since the 1980s. Using historical data from the United States and Western Europe (1920–2026), the paper shows that the U shaped trajectory of inequality preceded political fragmentation, that institutional differences in labour organization, progressive taxation, and the design of the welfare state account for cross national variation in polarization more convincingly than internet penetration, and that digital technologies operate as amplifiers of pre existing social cleavages.

Keywords: political polarization; economic inequality; political inequality; elite capture; social media; affective polarization; trade unions ... Citește mai mult