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This chapter provides an account of opposition party formation and development in Zimbabwe from 1999 to 2008. It argues that the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was able to maintain a strong and cohesive party organization, despite significant state-sponsored violence and repression, for two reasons. First of all, the party benefited from the strong organizational structures and collective identity that organized labor and other civil society actors built prior to the launch of the opposition parties. Activists and grassroots constituencies had a track record of successful protest, and there were established procedures for decision-making and conflict resolution. Secondly, political polarization in Zimbabwe strengthened the opposition’s cohesion and the commitment of its activists. By increasing the salience of partisan identity, conflict and violence made defection difficult. The chapter suggests that conflict and polarization can have important party-building consequences, for both opposition and ruling parties alike.

Jouet begins his book by describing his work as a human rights lawyer representing poor prisoners in New York at the time of mass incarceration on a scale unprecedented in global history. He goes on to describe how the degeneration of American justice embodies troubling dimensions of American exceptionalism, including acute wealth inequality, systemic racism, anti-intellectualism, Christian fundamentalism, and chronic human rights abuses. While the word “exceptional” can imply greatness or superiority, American exceptionalism historically referred to how America is “exceptional” in the sense of “unique,” “different,” “unusual,” “extraordinary” or “peculiar.” Ironically, scores of Americans equate “exceptionalism” with their nation’s superiority when it might be its Achilles Heel—a self-destructive vicious circle threatening admirable dimensions of American society.

The misconception that “exceptionalism” means American superiority stems from how Republicans turned this longstanding concept into a rhetorical weapon against Obama by accusing him of unpatriotically lacking faith in “American exceptionalism” given his “socialist” and “un-American” agenda. These accusations paralleled conspiracy theories claiming that Obama is not really American due to his fake U.S. birth certificate and Islamism. Meanwhile, intense polarization became a major dimension of American exceptionalism’s true meaning. The huge rift between conservatives and liberals under George W. Bush worsened under Obama. It may grow worse following the Clinton-Trump presidential election. Intriguingly, America and other Western nations are moving apart and closer at the same time. While liberal America is mainly evolving in the same direction as the rest of the West, conservative America is an outlier in light of its peculiar ideology, including profound anti-intellectualism, anti-governmentalism, and Christian fundamentalism. Liberal America’s worldview is not simply different from the worldview in conservative America, but also closer to the dominant worldview elsewhere in the West: Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Tellingly, universal health care is broadly supported by both liberals and conservatives in all Western nations except America, where Republicans relentlessly denounce the evils of “socialized medicine.”

This chapter examines American sanctity during the papacy of John Paul II (1978-2005). John Paul II canonized more saints then all of his predecessors combined. He canonized Neumann and Duchesne, beatified six other U.S. candidates, and introduced dozens of others. Beyond the numbers, this chapter traces a fundamental shift in U.S. saint-seeking throughout this era. As polarization within the church supplanted marginalization in America as the keynote of U.S. Catholicism, U.S. Catholics became less likely to project their American stories onto candidates for canonization. Instead, prospective saints became signifiers of where Catholic individuals and groups position themselves within the church, often on issues related to gender, sexuality, and social and racial justice.

Diversity research has shown that ethno-linguistic, religious, and genetic diversity are related to a variety of socio-economic outcomes. We complement this literature by focusing on a dimension of diversity so far ignored in diversity research for lack of data: Diversity in key human values. Using data from all available waves of the World Values Survey and the European Values Study we develop a multi-item indicator of value diversity. This measure reflects the extent to which key human values are shared among the inhabitants of a country. Our newly developed measure is available for up to 111 countries and three decades (1981-2014). We conclude by comparing our newly developed measure of value diversity with existing measures of social diversity and relating it to various indicator of socio-economic performance.

Cultural conflicts about the family, such as those concerning abortion and same-sex marriage, have intensified over the last few decades among American Catholics. These conflicts comprise much of the moral polarization that characterizes our public politics, as can be seen in the recent controversy over Notre Dame's invitation to President Obama to give the commencement address. Why are these conflicts resonant among Catholics?This book answers this question by presenting a detailed ethnographic analysis of the local religious cultures in two Catholic parishes: religiously conservative Our Lady of the Assumption Church and theologically progressive St. Brigitta Church. It reveals how two congregational social processes—the practice of central ecclesial metaphors, and the construction of Catholic identities—matter for the ways in which parishioners work out the routines of marriage, childrearing and work-family balance, as well as to the ways they connect these challenges to the public politics of the family.

The other opposition that structures crime reporting in Venezuela is the polarized political distinction between the opposition and supporters of President Hugo Ch൥z (chavistas). Chapter five uses the death of the crime photographer Jorge Tortoza–murdered while covering the failed 2012 coup d'賡‎t against President Ch൥z–to illustrate this polarized dynamic and the precarious position occupied by ordinary beat journalists.

One Gingrich Senator in particular, Jim DeMint, was instrumental in recruiting, funding, and mentoring the Tea Party Senators. In turn, the Tea Party Senators have behaved much as the Gingrich Senators even when they have not previously served in the House. Many of the strategies of the Tea Party Senators had been legitimized by the Gingrich Senators over the last decade.

Nothing in the Senate’s current development suggests that the party polarization or the partisan warfare will subside. Rather, all trends point to a more dysfunctional Senate than the one that currently exists.

I show how the Senate has entered a new period following the Textbook Senate from the mid-twentieth century and the individualized era from the 1960s and 1970s. In the Partisan Senate, the senators are no longer individuals, but members of a team that strive for majority party status—sometimes at all costs. I explicate the differences between ideologically based party polarization and competition-based partisan warfare. I show how the Senate is better able to absorb those senators with extreme ideological positions. Members with extreme partisan warfare tendencies make legislating in the Senate much more difficult.

The Gingrich Senators are at the root of party polarization in the Senate. In fact, almost all of the increase in polarization over the last 30 years is a direct consequence of the increasing numbers and increasing conservative voting patterns of the Gingrich Senators. The other Republican senators and the Democratic senators contribute about as much to party polarization as they have since the early 1970s.

Only part of the Gingrich Senators’ more conservative voting patterns is explained by their more conservative constituencies. Even those Gingrich Senators from swing states vote much more conservatively than their colleagues.

Personal characteristics cannot explain the distinctiveness of the Gingrich Senators. Neither can their distinctiveness be explained by close proximity to Gingrich when they served in the House. Rather, the key factor in understanding their Senate behaviour is knowing that their politics were forged in a highly combative House.

The Gingrich Senators electorally compensate for their more conservative ideology by raising larger sums of campaign contributions. As a consequence, the Gingrich Senators are less likely to retire and more likely to be reelected than their fellow Republicans, which means that each Gingrich Senator contributes disproportionately to the makeup of the Senate.

The Gingrich Senators have steamrolled over the other Republican senators who have not signed on to their war. At times, the Gingrich Senators have persisted in their pack mentality and remained distinct in the Republican Conference while at other times they have led the charge in changing the behaviour of the other Republicans in the Senate.