Political Polarization during Extreme Events

Abstract

This technical note calls for an interdisciplinary research agenda to study the intersection of policy problems and extreme events. We argue that extreme events can unveil chronic problems in societies such as political polarization. We used social media data following the 2014 Soma mining disaster in Turkey as an illustrative case study. Our findings indicate that polarized sense-making during and following extreme events can hinder the effectiveness of response and recovery operations. We conclude with some recommendations for using social media data during response operations to improve disaster communications in contexts characterized by high levels of political polarization.