Jennifer Lynn McCoy, Author at Social Science Space

Jennifer Lynn McCoy

Jennifer McCoy is distinguished university professor of political science and was founding director of the Global Studies Institute at Georgia State University. A specialist on democratization, democracy promotion, mediation and conflict prevention, election processes and election observation, and Latin American politics, McCoy has authored or edited six books and dozens of articles. She served as director of the Carter Center’s Americas Program 1998-2015, where she created the group of Friends of the Inter-American Democratic Charter group; directed The Carter Center’s projects on Mediation and Monitoring in Venezuela 2002-2004, Ecuador-Colombia Dialogue Group 2008-2010, and U.S.-Andean Dialogue Group 2010-2011; led over a dozen election monitoring missions and organized former President Carter’s historic trips to Cuba in 2002 and 2011.

Extreme Polarization Is Bad But Need Not Be Inevitable

Are Americans now stuck in animosity and anger that will undermine democracy, or can the nation pull out of it? Here, Jennifer McCoy shares some of the findings of a collaborative research project she led that examined political polarization in 11 countries, including the United States. Their research shows that the most democratic of actions – participating in elections – is exactly the thing to do to help reduce polarization.