Abstract
In Fighting Polarisation, Cherian George offers a conceptually rigorous intervention into the intensification of political and cultural polarization in contemporary democracies. Rather than attributing polarization primarily to digital platforms, George situates it within longer histories of political contestation, media transformation and institutional fragility. His central claim is clear: polarization is not equivalent to democratic disagreement. It is a political strategy that delegitimizes opponents and corrodes the shared communicative norms necessary for pluralist coexistence. Against fatalistic narratives of democratic decline, the book advances a defense of pluralism as both institutional architecture and civic ethic.
The opening chapters establish the conceptual groundwork. George distinguishes conflict, which is constitutive of democracy, from polarization, which seeks to transform adversaries into enemies beyond legitimate contestation. This distinction is analytically significant. It resonates with scholarship on affective polarization, which shows how partisan animosity increasingly operates at the level of identity rather than policy disagreement (Iyengar et al., 2019). However, George extends this literature by foregrounding communicative infrastructures and elite strategies rather than focusing solely on attitudinal metrics. Polarization emerges as a performative political project, enacted through rhetoric, media framing and symbolic boundary-making.
Subsequent chapters examine how polarizing strategies are operationalized across political contexts. Drawing on comparative cases, George demonstrates that while institutional settings vary, the grammar of polarization remains strikingly similar. Political actors construct narratives of existential threat, frame opponents as morally corrupt or alien, and mobilize grievance to consolidate power. Media systems play a critical mediating role in amplifying or moderating these dynamics. This chapter-wise progression from conceptual clarification to comparative illustration allows George to move from theory to grounded analysis without sacrificing analytical coherence.
A central strand running through the middle chapters is the critique of technological determinism. George acknowledges the amplificatory effects of algorithmic curation and networked communication, yet insists that platforms do not originate polarization. Rather, they intensify incentives already embedded in political competition. In doing so, he aligns with broader arguments about the mediated construction of social reality (Couldry and Hepp, 2016). Communication infrastructures matter, but they operate within political economies and institutional logics that predate them. This position offers a corrective to reductionist accounts that attribute democratic erosion primarily to social media architectures (Sunstein, 2018).
The later chapters turn explicitly normative, articulating a defense of pluralism. For George, pluralism is not mere tolerance, but a disciplined commitment to institutional safeguards, professional norms and civic restraint. Independent courts, public service journalism, civil society organizations and regulatory frameworks are presented as buffers that can contain polarizing excess. Here the argument echoes deliberative democratic theory, particularly concerns about the erosion of shared epistemic standards in mediatized societies (Habermas, 2006). George does not romanticize institutions; he acknowledges their vulnerability to capture and politicization. Nevertheless, he maintains that democratic resilience depends on their renewal rather than their abandonment.
Across its chapters, the book consistently returns to the question of communicative space. Polarization fragments public discourse into mutually hostile enclaves. Pluralism, by contrast, requires shared arenas in which disagreement does not collapse into dehumanization. This framing positions the book squarely within global media and communication debates about public spheres, platform governance and democratic mediation. By integrating political analysis with media theory, George avoids disciplinary siloing and offers a synthetic framework.
There are, however, limitations. Although the comparative cases are illuminating, engagement with postcolonial democracies remains relatively brief. Given the varied trajectories of polarization in the Global South, deeper exploration would have enhanced the book’s global scope. Additionally, while George critiques technological reductionism, the structural political economy of digital capitalism receives less sustained attention. Issues such as data extraction, advertising-driven revenue models and transnational platform governance are acknowledged but not extensively theorized. Greater engagement with these dimensions might have strengthened the structural depth of the analysis.
The sociology of audiences is also underdeveloped. The book foregrounds elite discourse and institutional response, yet devotes limited space to how citizens interpret, negotiate or resist polarizing narratives in everyday life. Incorporating audience studies or ethnographic perspectives could have complicated the largely top-down model of communicative power. These limitations, however, do not detract from the conceptual clarity that defines the work.
Fighting Polarisation ultimately succeeds in reframing the debate. It resists alarmism without minimizing democratic risk. By disentangling conflict from polarization and insisting on the enduring value of pluralism, George provides scholars with a framework that is theoretically grounded and normatively serious. In an era marked by declining institutional trust and fragmented publics, the book offers a reminder that polarization is not an inevitable by-product of diversity or digitality. It is a contingent outcome shaped by political incentives, communicative practices and institutional design.
For global media and communication scholarship, this work represents a significant contribution. It bridges democratic theory, political communication and media studies while maintaining analytical discipline. Its chapter-wise progression from conceptual clarification to comparative illustration and normative reflection ensures argumentative coherence without sacrificing breadth. George’s defense of shared communicative spaces is neither nostalgic nor utopian. It is a call for institutional and civic renewal grounded in sober analysis. Moreover, the book’s analytical restraint and refusal of apocalyptic rhetoric make it particularly valuable in a scholarly field often tempted by crisis narratives. By insisting that democratic repair is possible, though difficult, George reintroduces agency into debates that too frequently oscillate between technological fatalism and moral panic.
