Suds

Spatial Unfolding of Democratic Systems

Our lack of tools to assess levels and dynamics of political polarization might just be one of the biggest threat to democracy. Polarization occurs when individuals or groups adopt increasingly divergent political views over a long period of time. It is a highly complex phenomenon, which is hard to detect and to address in the general population with existing data and methods.

SUDS provide a new approach to study levels and dynamics of political polarization in the general population. It relies on recent development in network science and cartographic mapping to assess how polarization evolves among individuals and groups. One of the outcome of SUDS is Dyadic Agreement Modeling (DyAM), the only method to measure levels and dynamics of political polarization using vote data.

Outcomes of SUDS increase the interoperability of polarization study and increase the likelihood that we find sustainable solutions to mitigate risks of political polarization among citizens.