User:Strati.mou/sandbox

Evaluating Content
The introduction paragraph to Pasokification is very very limited with only four sentences giving a very brief and limited outline of what it is.

I would think if the phrase "Pasokification" derives from the Greek political party PASOK, the first paragraph under the introduction would be about the Greek political party and it's decline, yet the party is only mentioned in the introductory paragraph. The second paragraph is in relation to the French Socialist Party and only says it is possible that Pasokification could occur in France based off the 2015 French regional election results.

For all the other countries mentioned in the article, there is only one sentence for each subheading. I find this troubling because they only give figures of elections without giving any type of context to the situation. There could also be more longitude in the election results they are showing. It seems most of the election material is only for one or two years dependent on the country. Overall, more information could be added to this article with more sourcing from academic publications rather than European press outlets.

Evaluating Tone
The lack of total information on the page actually benefits the tone. With such low amounts of information, we are seeing just the facts and no conjecture, projection or opinion.

Evaluating Sources
The sources are from European media outlets. I think this article could be stronger if there were at least one academic publication referenced. This is a very interesting topic that has implications all across Europe so I would be shocked to see if no academics have talked about this topic.

There are election results added in the subheadings for separate countries but the election results for Italy, Netherlands and the U.K. all do not have a single source. This means viewers will not be able to know if these numbers are accurate.

Checking the Talk Page
There are no conversations going on in the Talk page.

The article is rated as start-class on the quality scale. It is part of WikiProject Greece and WikiProject Politics.

Polarization (Politics)
Article is of mid-importance and a C on the quality scale. Talk page mentions offering real world examples of polarization, which I think could really help the page.

I do not think I would need to bolster the sourcing because almost all of the sources are from journals or think tanks. Overall impression of sourcing was very good.

There are a lot of quotations from sources that could potentially be removed and reference without the use of quotations by distilling info from many sources rather than only using the one.

I enjoy how they have separate critique, cause and effect sections, but believe there could be more general elaboration on what the causes and effects imply and how they occur rather than simply jumping straight into individual subsections.

After looking at the See Also section and the mention of the Civil War, a historical context could be added. Maybe add a section about political tribalism and how the 90's was a time of great polarization in both the elites, the media (due to the creation of 24 hour news networks) and the general public. I also believe there could be a more global perspective added. This is could include referencing to the Pasokification article I evaluated, which is the polarization of left-winged parties throughout Europe.

There is one graph included in the article showing the DW-Nominate scores of American politicians over time but if there are other visuals available I believe this could really beef up the article.

Potential Edits to Article
I think the main thing I would like to edit to the article would be to add a more global interpretation of polarization. I would like to add information on Pasokification, however I am having a hard time finding academic articles on this shift from a more moderate left wing of European governments to more "radical" left wing candidates/parties in power. There could be a connection made between the rise of Bernie Sanders and "Democratic Socialists" in the United States and Pasokification. The connection would be that the general public of the left in Europe and the U.S. are unsatisfied with the contentment of the moderate left-wing members and want to see more progressive changes rather than slightly altering the status quo. I also would like to add about how Poland has one of the furthest right governments in power since World War Two and how the rise of the Law and Justice party now has the majority in the Polish parliament.

The more I research into the topic, I think I may be able to add how the rise of populism, both in the U.S. and Poland, as well as other countries, is feeding into polarization and causing the general public to abandon the center and to become more right or left wing. This interaction of populism and polarization could also be mentioned in the rise of anti-Islam sentiments in both the U.K. (the Brexit vote) and Poland with the rise of a far-right, populist party. This move to the right based on anti-Islam sentiment is also increasing the prominence of the "alt-right" in Europe.

I was very interested when I learned of the use of Twitter trolls working on behalf of the Turkish government to gin up pro-far right-wing sentiment among the Turkish population by highlight specific populist beliefs. Lastly, I felt my comments so far were rather Eurocentric and was hoping to add a small paragraph about how in a post-Cold War South America, there were major changes being made to how the governments of the countries were functioning (due to them being younger democracies), and certain political outsiders were able to use anti-systemic sentiments to polarize the base to believe these changes should not be taking place, pushing the public further to the right or left.

Final Edits
Outside of the U.S., there are plenty of modern day examples of polarization in politics. A bulk of the research into global polarization comes from Europe. One example includes Pasokification in Greece. This is the trend from a shift from the center-left to a more far-left stance. Pasokification was caused by the Greek populous growing dissatisfied with the country's centrist, left wing party and how they handled the Great Recession and the austerity measures the European Union put in place during recovery. Although the shift further to the left was a massive benefits to the liberal population in Greece, the results in Greece (as well as other nations like Germany, Sweden and Italy) have not been able to sustain themselves. Parties who have made the shift left have recently shown a decline in the voting booths, evidence their supporters are uneasy of the future.

The shift in Greece to the far-left is similar to the shift in countries like Poland, France and the U.K. to more far-right conservative positions. In those countries, there is heavy anti-Islam sentiment and the rise of populist commentary. The general population of the right in these countries tends to hold onto these more aggressive stances and pulls the parties further to the right. These stances include populist messages with Islamophobic, isolationist, and anti-LGBTQ language. Much of the polarization in these nations leads to either a more socialist left wing party, or more nationalist right wing party. These more polarized parties grow from the discontent of more moderate parties inability to provide progressive changes in either direction.