This chapter summarizes the main themes of the book and introduces our theory of relative deprivation to explain the timing and different expressions of discontent while providing a description of the book.

This chapter examines political discontent in Bolivia, Chile, Peru, and Uruguay through citizens’ perceived access to civil, political, and social citizenship rights. We find that countries with structured political systems (Bolivia, Uruguay) exhibit lower discontent despite objective challenges, while those with fragmented systems (Chile, Peru) show higher discontent despite better objective conditions. Using multilevel analysis of survey data, we demonstrate that perceived citizenship access varies significantly across territories and social groups, driven by local state capacity and individual trajectories. The Chilean case study reveals “disjointed polarization” – elite-level polarization without mass alignment – leading to repeated electoral cycling and governmental impotence. This creates a vicious cycle where fragmented discontent prevents effective representation while weak governance fuels further alienation. Our findings suggest that political structuring of conflict, even through polarization, may be preferable to unstructured vertical discontent that undermines democratic governance and reform capacity.

This chapter shows how power-sharing contributed to Tunisia’s democratic breakdown in 2021. The populism and polarization produced by the 2015–19 grand coalition paralyzed the country between 2019 and 2021. The new populist president, Kais Saied, clashed with the parties in parliament, while the extremist factions in the assembly clashed among themselves, inhibiting governance. When disaffection with the political class reached a fever pitch during COVID-19, Saied decided to strike, shuttering the parliament and cracking down on the political parties. In a nationally representative survey conducted in 2022, I find that a desire to dissolve all political parties (populism) and to dissolve Ennahda in particular (polarization) were by far the two strongest predictors of support for Saied’s takeover, more so than frustrations with the economy or fears over the COVID-19 pandemic. Experimentally, priming respondents that Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi was now on trial increased support for Saied’s moves by almost 15 percentage points. Rather than saving the transition, the continued pursuit of power-sharing produced precisely the populism and polarization that helped overturn it.

This chapter describes the 2010–11 revolution that kick-started Tunisia’s democratic transition and the initial transitional year that followed. It illustrates the two major axes of polarization that would define Tunisian democracy: one between the old regime and the revolutionaries, and the other between the secularists and the Islamists. It then describes the initial attempts to bridge these divides through compromise and consensus. Interim Prime Minister Beji Caid Essebsi initiated major compromises on the revolution’s demands of anti-corruption, security sector reform, and political lustration, finding consensus between the old regime and the revolutionaries. Meanwhile, the winning Islamist and secular parties in the 2011 elections likewise chose consensus, agreeing to govern in a grand coalition. These choices to share power and find common ground facilitated Tunisia’s early transitional years, allowing the political elite to rein in polarization and uncertainty and avoid spoilers that may otherwise have thwarted the transition to Tunisia’s first-ever democratically elected government in December 2011.

This chapter probes whether the theory travels beyond Tunisia by conducting a cross-national analysis of grand coalition governments across all democratic transitions between 1942 and 2020. It shows that grand coalitions are statistically associated with democratic collapse, even when controlling for the underlying structural challenges that lead to them. The correlation between grand coalitions and democratic breakdown likewise remains even when pursuing techniques to address potential confounding, such as propensity score matching, inverse probability weighting, and an instrumental variable. The data also lend support for both mechanisms, showing that grand coalitions lead to a higher vote share for populists in the next elections and lead to increased mass polarization as well. While grand coalitions in the first few years of a transition have only mixed effects on democratic breakdown, continuing a coalition beyond that point makes breakdown far more likely. After establishing the rules of the game, new democracies must transition to the politics of competition, rather than continued consensus.

This chapter illustrates the dark sides of continuing to pursue power-sharing after establishing the rules of the game. It outlines why the major political parties in Tunisia decided to keep governing together through another grand coalition government between 2015 and 2019, and how these efforts both worsened polarization and sparked the rise of populism. It first shows that the decision of Nidaa Tounes and Ennahda to enter into a grand coalition ceded space for the emergence of hardline parties on either end of the spectrum, worsening polarization. Second, the extended power-sharing inadvertently sparked populism as well, by tainting all of the mainstream parties as part of the establishment and fueling the rise of populist outsider Kais Saied. Drawing on interviews and original election surveys conducted in 2019 and 2020, I show that the grand coalition led the party system to collapse, with frustrated voters shifting to populist and extremist forces instead. Had the political parties not entered into a grand coalition, they may have kept Tunisians invested in the two major, moderate parties and staved off the rise of these populists and extremists.

This introductory chapter outlines the core argument of the book: that power-sharing can be useful at the start of a democratic transition in order to generate consensus over the rules of the game, but extending power-sharing beyond that point can lead democracy to unravel. Power-sharing frustrates the voters of each party and risks the party system collapsing in favor of populists and extremists. By worsening polarization and populism, power-sharing thus makes democratic breakdown more likely. The chapter outlines the contributions of this theory to the existing literature on democratization, polarization, and populism, showing that democratic transitions require a balance between competition and consensus. The chapter illustrates the core argument in Tunisia and draws parallels to other cases in the Middle East, in Europe, and in Latin America. It ends by previewing each chapter of the book and defining the key terms.

This final chapter concludes by tracing out the book’s contributions to our understanding of democratization. It highlights that while inclusion, consensus, and power-sharing are useful in the transition to democracy, it is differentiation, competition, and polarization that help to consolidate democracy. It highlights how the more successful cases of democratization, like South Africa, pursued grand coalitions only at the very start of the transition, before shifting to normal competition once the constitution was established. The chapter also provides some initial theorization as to what a healthy degree of polarization might look like, introducing the notion of “polarization within bounds,” where parties seek consensus only when adjusting the rules of the game, but seek competition within those bounds. Finally, it offers some brief reflections on the state of democracy in the United States and Europe. It argues that the initial strategies of mainstream parties toward populist threats have been self-defeating and provides some recommendations building on the insights of this book for alternative strategies to deflate populist threats.

This chapter describes how the 2011–14 grand coalition government in Tunisia navigated growing polarization in 2012 and especially 2013. That year, two major political assassinations and dueling protests led to fears of a coup or a descent into civil war. But the political elite’s norms of power-sharing, compromise, and consensus helped to bring them back from the brink and strike a grand bargain that put the transition back on track. Through an inclusive national dialogue mediated by civil society, Tunisia’s Islamist and secularist forces found common ground over a new, progressive constitution that was approved by near unanimity. Meanwhile, the revolutionary and old regime forces likewise compromised to include the old regime in elections but allow a transitional justice mechanism to hold the worst abusers accountable. Power-sharing thus enabled Tunisia’s transition in 2014 to establish a new constitution and electoral law – the rules of the game that would govern its new democracy.

Societal polarization ranks among the most pressing global challenges, posing serious risks to social harmony, democratic stability, and collective well-being. This chapter draws on psychology and neuroscience to examine how ordinary differences can escalate into entrenched intergroup conflict. We review key psychological and neural mechanisms underlying intergroup conflict, including social categorization, stereotyping, personality traits, power, and echo-chambers. We then synthesize evidence-based interventions, from informational and contact-based approaches to emotion- and identity-focused strategies, that have been shown to reduce intergroup tensions and strengthen social cohesion. Together, these insights offer a roadmap for fostering more cooperative and socially harmonious societies.

This chapter examines political disagreement as a serious everyday problem, exploring why we struggle to engage with those who think differently about politics. Taking an identity-centered psychological approach, the chapter examines how political positions become tied to our sense of self, transforming policy disagreements into perceived threats. Drawing on research on social identity, motivated reasoning, and meta-perceptions, I explore how these processes create vicious cycles of avoidance in ordinary conversations – at family dinners, in workplaces, and across social media. The chapter then turns to evidence-based interventions, arguing that the solution lies not in eliminating disagreement but in building skills for productive dialogue, from conversational receptiveness to epistemic humility, alongside educational and institutional approaches that can cultivate democratic curiosity.

Affective polarization is commonly defined and measured by combining positive attitudes toward one’s own political party and negative attitudes toward one or more opposing parties. It has aroused considerable public and academic attention because of its link to societal hostility, uncivil online discourse, declining cross-partisan interactions, political intransigence, and a hardening of party lines – all contributing to democratic backsliding. To better understand the impact of polarization on democracy, this chapter unpacks polarization into two key psychological components: (1) identification with one’s in-party, and (2) animosity toward an out-party. We summarize evidence on these positive and negative facets of attachment to a political party, which fuel democratic engagement but also motivate support for undemocratic practices. Out-party animosity, linked to but distinguishable from partisan identity, can promote more extreme antidemocratic behaviors, including support for political violence. We discuss implications of these dynamics for democratic backsliding in the United States and conclude that strong partisans are more concerned about their party than democracy.

This chapter surveys reforms to insulate apex courts from polarization, arguing they cluster into two strategies: reducing court partisanship and balancing it. Section I frames partisanship as the core institutional harm: when courts are seen as partisan, their legitimacy, capacity to deliberate, and all theories of judicial review erode. Section 8.2 maps proposals, using the 2021 US Presidential Commission report and comparative examples. "Reducing" strategies lower incentives to capture courts (jurisdiction-stripping, override clauses, deference/formalism), shield judges (ethics codes, recusals, depoliticized appointments), increase transparency (reasoned emergency orders, livestreaming), and incentivize consensus (supermajority rules). Balancing strategies accept persistent partisanship and seek fair counterweights: court-packing, rotation or panel systems to break blocs, “balanced bench” or coalition/opposition appointment formulas, proportional representation on nominating bodies, and term limits/retirement rules with staggered turnover. The chapter shows how supermajority rules can moderate outcomes or divide spoils, depending on political culture.