The Symbolic Organisation of Political Antagonism: An Integrative Model of Cultural and Social Polarisation

This article develops a cultural and relational model of political polarisation that integrates insights from currently disconnected streams of scholarship to conceive polarisation as a discursive and performative struggle over meaning. Rather than treating polarisation as mere attitudinal divergence, we frame it as the symbolic organization of political antagonism. Our model identifies three interrelated symbolic dimensions: divergence on contested issues conceptualized as signifiers; the consistency of these divergent issues, enabling chains of signification held together by “linking signifiers” that mark group identity; and the mutual constitution of opposing semiotic chains and identities. We add a fourth, social dimension by distinguishing symbolic from social boundaries and outline the various ways in which they interact. This framework offers a sociological theory of polarisation attentive to meaning-making, affect, boundary formation, co-constitution, and the conditional relationship between cultural and social differentiation.