The Engine of Division: How Global Forces Promoted Political Polarisation

The first blog I wrote on this site was back in April 2020. It was entitled Tribalism versus the Global Village (https://timboatswain.wixsite.com/website/post/something-big-is-coming). I pointed out that it seemed paradoxical that the more the world becomes a 'global village' through the revolution of electronic communication and easy travel, with the implied closer relations and understanding of 'other' societies and cultures, the more intolerant and xenophobic some people are becoming. Nearly six years on, I think it is fair to say that the intolerance I referred to then has evolved into a frightening polarisation of societies and cultures, and this polarisation is pervading every aspect of politics, with the extremists of the left and right commanding the stage.

I would argue that to navigate the landscape of the contemporary world and engage with domestic politics is to traverse a terrain of deep fissures and entrenched divisions. From the halls of national legislatures to the digital public square, polarisation has become a defining, and seemingly pervasive, condition. While some are inevitably tempted to attribute this divide solely to the failings of individual leaders (who then become hate figures) or specific parties, the roots run deeper, woven into the very fabric of this relatively new interconnected world. The phenomenon is not merely a political trend but a complex outcome of global societal forces that have, I believe, unintentionally, built and amplified the machinery of division.

At the heart of this dynamic lies the dual-edged legacy of economic globalisation. While lifting billions from poverty and creating unprecedented transnational wealth, it also sculpted profound inequalities within nations. The visible fault line between cosmopolitan elite thriving in a borderless economy and hinterlands experiencing deindustrialisation and wage stagnation has become fertile ground for resentment. This economic dislocation fostered a potent sense of distancing from power, feeding the perception that national sovereignty had been ceded to faceless global corporations and distant, uncaring financial institutions. The rallying cry to "take back control" is, in part, a visceral reaction to this perceived erosion of local agency, a sentiment skillfully harnessed by populist movements across the globe. In the UK, it was the infamous slogan of the Brexiters, yet in practice, within the global economy, ultimately impotent.

Simultaneously, the digital revolution has provided the essential infrastructure for polarisation to metastasise. The paradox is manifest in that the very tools designed to connect humanity have also become engines of fragmentation. Social media platforms, governed by algorithms that prioritise engagement above all, systematically promote content that sparks outrage and confirms biases. This has birthed impermeable digital silos, bubbles — echo chambers where opposing viewpoints are filtered out and shared factual realities dissolve. In this new information ecosystem, the democratisation of speech has paradoxically fragmented truth itself, enabling misinformation and hyper-partisan narratives to spread with a speed and scale that traditional media gatekeepers cannot counter. The same global networks that empower transformative social movements also equip their opponents, turning every cultural debate into a transnational, and often toxic, clash. Whatever the 'truth' is, it crumbles before fake news, propaganda and misinformation, so black becomes white and white becomes black!

These economic and technological shifts have intensely magnified long-simmering cultural and identity conflicts. Globalisation, with its flows of people, ideas, and capital, has brought questions of belonging and values to the forefront. The tension between a cosmopolitan, multicultural vision and a desire to preserve perceived national or ethnic identity now defines debates over immigration, history, and religion. Furthermore, global institutions advocating for universal norms—from human rights to climate action—are frequently framed not as collective endeavours but as impositions on national sovereignty and local traditions. This clash of visions transforms political discourse from a negotiation over policy into an existential battle over a society's core identity.

Inevitably, this pervasive distrust and tribalism corrode the foundations of traditional institutions. As faith in governments, mainstream media, academia, and international bodies declines, the resulting vacuum is filled by polarising charismatic figures and alternative media sources that thrive on animosity. Political parties, reflecting this shift, have realigned from broad coalitions built on economic interests into starkly defined cultural tribes, making compromise seem like betrayal; identity politics has trumped any rational debate. On the international stage, the post-Cold War search for a new order compounds this effect. The transition from a unipolar system to a more contentious multipolar one, with competing models of governance, forces nations into sharper strategic alignments, presenting global politics as a binary choice between rival camps. The United Nations, born out of Western democracies' desire to establish a world order of peace, is now dominated by absolutist regimes: of the 193 members, only 71 are classified as democracies and, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Democracy Index, 46 of those are perceived as 'flawed democracies'. For the non-democratic states, dictatorial regimes, tribal antipathy is often the mainstay of their foreign policy, which focuses on external enemies as responsible for the failure to establish Utopia. Note how the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ali Hosseini Khamene, has claimed that the present protests against this oppressive theocratic state were "seditious riots that were orchestrated by the US".

Ultimately, this is not a linear story of cause and effect, but a self-reinforcing cycle—a feedback loop of division. Structural drivers like globalisation and digital technology create conditions of inequality, information fragmentation, and identity anxiety. These conditions are then exploited and amplified by agents such as populist politicians, algorithmic platforms, and polarising media. Their actions lead to political outcomes marked by tribal politics and geopolitical rivalry, which in turn deepen the structural conditions that started the cycle.

Therefore, while global society did not invent humanity’s capacity for "us versus them" thinking, it has uniquely supercharged it. By constructing a world of vast economic interdependence, limitless digital connectivity, and intense cultural interplay, we have built an ecosystem where division can thrive with unprecedented efficiency and virulence. Recognising this complex interplay is the first, crucial step toward seeking antidotes—not merely in political compromises, but in redesigning the very societal systems that have made polarisation a hallmark of our age.