Polarization and International Politics
Abstract: Polarization is a defining feature of politics in the United States and many other democracies. Yet although there is much research focusing on the effects of polarization on domestic politics, little is known about how polarization influences international cooperation and conflict. Democracies are thought to have advantages over nondemocratic nations in international relations, including the ability to keep foreign policy stable across time, credibly signal information to adversaries, and maintain commitments to allies. Does domestic polarization affect these “democratic advantages”? In Polarization and International Politics, Rachel Myrick argues that polarization reshapes the nature of constraints on democratic leaders, which in turn erodes the advantages democracies have in foreign affairs.
Drawing on a range of evidence, including cross-national analyses, observational and experimental public opinion research, descriptive data on the behavior of politicians, and interviews with policymakers, Myrick develops metrics that explain the effect of extreme polarization on international politics and traces the pathways by which polarization undermines each of the democratic advantages. Turning to the case of contemporary US foreign policy, Myrick shows that as its political leaders become less responsive to the public and less accountable to political opposition, the United States loses both reliability as an ally and credibility as an adversary. Myrick’s account links the effects of polarization on democratic governance to theories of international relations, integrating work across the fields of international relations, comparative politics, and American politics to explore how patterns of domestic polarization shape the international system.
Rachel Myrick is the Douglas & Ellen Lowey Associate Professor of Political Science at Duke University. Her research explores how partisan polarization affects foreign policymaking in democracies, with an emphasis on US national security policy. Her first book, Polarization and International Politics: How Extreme Partisanship Threatens Global Stability, was published in 2025 with Princeton University Press in their Studies in International History & Politics Series. She is currently writing a second book, titled The Domestic Politics of Foreign Threat. Her research is published at academic journals like International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, and Journal of Politics, among others. Myrick is a faculty affiliate of the Program in American Grand Strategy at Duke, the America in the World Consortium (AWC), and the Triangle Institute for Security Studies (TISS). She was also a member of the inaugural cohort of the Aspen Strategy Group's Rising Leaders Program for young professionals in national security and foreign policy. Myrick completed her PhD in 2021 at the Department of Political Science at Stanford University, where her doctoral dissertation won the Merze Tate Award from the American Political Science Association and the John McCain Dissertation Award from the Munich Security Conference.
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