The impact of political polarisation on strategic consensus
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2025-06-23
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en
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This thesis investigates the impact of political polarisation within governance boards on the likelihood of achieving strategic consensus specifically within Dutch water management organisations. Recognising that boards often operate in highly polarised environments, the study addresses a critical gap in understanding how polarisation and particularly affective polarisation disrupt collaborative decision-making processes. Building on theories of group polarisation and social identity, this study employs a quantitative analysis of board meeting transcripts combined with linguistic expression metrics via LIWC to quantify affect and polarisation indicators. The findings indicate that increased affective polarisation measured by linguistic markers, reduces the probability of consensus especially in high-salience issues. Contributions with more unique speakers also tend to have a negative effect on unanimous decisions further impeding consensus-building. Although some evidence suggests polarisation may impair unanimous decision-making, effects are context-dependent and moderated by issue salience indicated by a non-significant but plausible curvilinear relationship. The study concludes that institutional design and targeted conflict mitigation strategies are essential to mitigate polarisation's adverse effects, thereby enhancing governance effectiveness in ideologically divided settings.
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen