Global political polarisation narratives skewed by 'America problem', review suggests • City St George's, University of London

Andrea Baronchelli, Professor of Complexity Science, co-authors new article published in Nature Communications.

By City St George's Press Office (City St George's Press Office), Published Sunday, 6^th September 2026

Published in the journal, Nature Communications, a new review article suggests that an over-reliance on literature about the US skews global narratives about political polarisation. Leaving governments unprepared on how to tackle the problem at home.

The article from City St George’s, University of London, King’s College London, and others cites studies from experts from across the UK, Europe, Asia, Australia and the US, with the authors warning that the phenomenon risks applying US solutions to non-US problems, with dangerous ramifications for democracy.

In the context of artificial intelligence (AI) and social media, these wrong assumptions may lead policymakers to make decisions that fail to address the true drivers of polarisation.

Andrea Baronchelli is Professor of Complexity Science at the Department of Mathematics, School of Science & Technology at City St George's University of London and the article’s senior author. He said:

Polarisation is not a single phenomenon with a universal set of causes or solutions. Political institutions, social identities and media environments differ across countries, and the same intervention can have very different, even opposite, effects in different contexts. If we want effective policy, we need to understand those differences rather than assume that one model of polarisation applies everywhere.

For example, the review cites a study which showed that when deactivated Facebook in the US reduced polarisation. However, when replicated in Bosnia-Herzegovina researchers found the opposite occurred; by supplying an alternative to individuals’ lack of offline exposure to other ethnicities Facebook helped promote political cohesion.

This suggests that any move to regulate social media, and by extension the use of AI in recommendation algorithms, must be country dependent as opposed to a singular universal rule informed by a US context.

Dr Max Falkenberg, AI+ Senior Fellow at King’s College London and lead author of the article, said:

Social science has an America problem. The first Trump Presidency and the role of social media in that election caused an explosion in polarisation studies in the US that the rest of the world is yet to catch up with. But norms established in the US such as political antagonism being based on a one-dimensional left-right axis, don’t necessarily fit with what’s happening in other parts of the world.
Ensuring a global literature on political polarisation must be a fundamental goal of the academic community. There are legitimate concerns around AI being used as a tool to further polarise our societies but understanding the polarising role of AI will only be possible if the evidence is not solely US-focused. If we fail to understand the nature of political disagreement, how can we hope to be better?

As a way to counteract the over-reliance on the US, the researchers advocate the promotion and funding of work outside the US and comparative research that captures the commonalities and uniqueness in the polarisation of different countries.

They also suggest that academia push back against social media companies' efforts to restrict data access as a necessity to establish links between polarisation and digital media use across the globe.

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