While individuals’ perceptions of political ideology undoubtedly vary country to country, the levels of polarization measured on this scale make sense when placed against the backdrop of real-world events. In Brazil, efforts to investigate former right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro for his role in the Jan. 8, 2023 Congress attack in Brasília have brought his right-wing supporters into the streets in droves. With roughly 37% of Brazilians espousing either a far-right or far-left political ideology as of February 2024, Brazil is the most polarized country in which we currently track political sentiment on a daily basis. In second place, Turkey has long been considered a highly polarized country, and closely contested elections in 2023 revealed the durability of the deep-seated ideological rifts in Turkish politics. Other countries near the top of our polarization ranking like Italy and France have seen growing support for far-right parties in recent years, even beyond observed levels of adherence to far-right ideology.
The right wing is in the drivers’ seat
These days, it is the political right that is dominating the extremes of the ideological spectrum, with very few countries witnessing a larger share of adults espousing extreme-left views. Mexico is the noteworthy exception, with left-wing populist Andrés Manuel López Obrador continually ranking as one of the most popular leaders in Latin America (and beyond).
See our Global Political Polarization Tracker and companion chart pack for both left-right ideological splits and a breakdown of the full scale for all 25 countries.
Comparing our high-frequency measure to a traditional polarization metric
We compared our high-frequency measure of political polarization to a well-known external indicator compiled by the Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem).1 V-Dem’s methodology is based on annual expert assessments of levels of “us vs. them” polarization on a five-point scale. While both measures of polarization are quite different in terms of their underlying construction, the top 10 countries on our polarization ranking all had positive scores on V-Dem’s polarization scale, indicating more harmful polarization.
Because Morning Consult surveys thousands of respondents daily, our data enables us (and our clients) to track levels of political polarization in near real-time. An obvious advantage of real-time tracking is the ability to look at changes in polarization around major events such as elections.
And in fact, several of the countries where our rating reported recent increases in polarization were those in which elections took place in 2023. These include Poland, the Netherlands, Spain, and Switzerland. In short, elections seem to be polarization engines.
Elections prime polarization
Of the 25 democracies in our tracker, 13 held national elections in the last two years. In most of those countries, political polarization reached a high water mark around the time of the election. In many cases, the share of respondents espousing extreme political views was five points higher around election time compared with several months prior.
