Expertise
Comparative and International Politics: Polarization and depolarization, Democratic backsliding and recovery, electoral processes and election observation, Latin American politics
Bio
Jennifer McCoy, PhD, is Regent’s Professor of Political Science at Georgia State University and Nonresident Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, as well as Research Affiliate at CEU’s Democracy Institute in Budapest. She was named a 2024 Andrew Carnegie Fellow, one of 28 scholars nationwide who will explore political polarization as well as what might help tackle division and strengthen American democracy. A specialist on democratic erosion and polarization, mediation and conflict prevention, election processes and election observation, and Latin American politics, Dr. McCoy has authored or edited six books and dozens of articles. Her latest volume is Polarizing Polities: A Global Threat to Democracy, co-edited with Murat Somer (2019). She teaches courses on democratic erosion, comparative democratization, international norms, and Latin American politics. Dr. McCoy’s Andrew Carnegie Fellowship funds a two-year project, “Mitigating Pernicious Polarization through Innovative Civic Educational Interventions,” with co-investigator Michael Evans to build student civic skills and dispositions to navigate the growing challenges of disinformation, distrust in government, divisive political rhetoric, and social fragmentation. It will measure the impact of innovative civic education assignments given to over 8,000 students over two years. Dr. McCoy’s long-term research program on Polarized Democracies seeks to determine the causes, consequences and solutions to polarized societies around the world. She and Murat Somer developed the concept of “pernicious polarization” to refer to the political polarization that divides societies into mutually distrustful “Us vs. Them” camps, undermines the capacity of democracies to address critical policy problems, and often incentivizes leaders and citizens to support democratic erosion. Leading a group of international scholars and funded by NSF, International Studies Association, and Central European University, McCoy organized two international workshops whose work was published as book-length volumes of the American Behavioral Scientist (Jan 2018) and Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science (January 2019), co-edited by Jennifer McCoy and Murat Somer. She is currently working on two book projects with Murat Somer on strategies to prevent and overcome pernicious polarization and protect democracy at the macro level, and on opposition strategies to challenge incremental autocratization. In another project, McCoy examines the micro-foundations of severe polarization and democratic erosion, looking at causes of citizen support for democratic-norm violations, as well as possible antidotes to the hostility and distrust of the “Other” and decreasing support for democracy caused by Us vs Them polarizing strategies of populist political leaders. Dr. McCoy served as Director of the Carter Center’s Americas Program (1998-2015), leading projects on democratic strengthening, mediation and dialogue, and hemispheric cooperation. McCoy is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations; member of the International Women’s Forum; and founding co-chair of the Atlanta chapter of the Scholar’s Strategy Network.