Although polarization is often associated with the divide between two opposing sides, political and international conflicts involve far more complex interests, historical contexts, and perspectives.
From the spread of information on social media to attempts at diplomatic negotiation between countries, polarization influences both how conflicts are interpreted and the possibilities for resolving them. Understanding these dynamics is an important step toward exploring the challenges of building peace.
A Divided World: When Differences Become Conflict
Disagreements between countries are nothing new, but the way these conflicts are presented to the public can reinforce the perception that the world is divided into opposing sides that cannot be reconciled.
In this context, polarization extends beyond political disputes and begins to shape how entire societies perceive their adversaries, interpret events, and recognize — or fail to recognize — shared interests.
In their 2012 article, Affect, Not Ideology: A Social Identity Perspective on Polarization, researchers Shanto Iyengar, Gaurav Sood, and Yphtach Lelkes discuss how political polarization can also manifest as an emotional rejection of opposing groups.
From this perspective, division is not only about the ideas people support, but also about how individuals begin to perceive those who belong to a different group. Disagreement ceases to be merely a difference in position and can turn into hostility, distrust, and social distance.
However, it is important to distinguish the existence of conflicts from the dynamics of polarization that may shape them. Wars have specific historical, territorial, economic, and political causes and cannot be explained by a single factor.
Nevertheless, when disputes are presented exclusively as confrontations between two opposing groups, their complexity risks being reduced to simplified narratives in which understanding the other side is confused with agreeing with it.
The scale of this situation is reflected in data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP), affiliated with Uppsala University. In 2025, 65 state-based armed conflicts were recorded, the highest number since 1946.
This figure highlights the challenges facing the international community in containing violence, although it does not, in itself, mean that all these conflicts were caused by polarization.
There Are Not Always Just Two Sides
Dividing conflicts into two opposing sides is one way of oversimplifying complex situations. By presenting a dispute as a choice between completely incompatible positions, this logic leaves less room to acknowledge differences within each group, shared interests, and alternatives that fall outside these extremes.
Reality, however, rarely fits into such rigid divisions. Even in deeply polarized societies, people have different experiences, opinions, and expectations that do not necessarily align with the positions of their governments or political representatives.
This simplification becomes particularly problematic when applied to wars. In international conflicts, governments, military forces, and political groups do not necessarily represent the entire populations associated with them.
Civilians with different experiences and perspectives may be associated with the decisions of their representatives, as though belonging to a particular territory or group automatically meant agreeing with all of their actions.
In this way, the idea of two opposing sides can obscure internal differences and make it harder to recognize the people living with the consequences of violence.
Recognizing this complexity, however, does not mean ignoring responsibility or treating all actions as equally legitimate. Understanding the perspectives involved in a conflict is different from justifying human rights violations or downplaying violence against civilians.
The challenge is to move beyond simplistic interpretations without abandoning critical analysis, distinguishing between populations, governments, and armed groups while recognizing that the pursuit of peace also requires accountability.
Polarization On and Off the Screen
The division of society into opposing groups can also shape everyday life, influencing personal relationships and how individuals respond to political events.
When differing opinions are perceived as threats or personal attacks, debate ceases to be an opportunity to exchange ideas and becomes a struggle to reaffirm one’s own convictions.
In this environment, dialogue becomes more difficult, not necessarily because differences have widened, but because it has become harder to recognize the legitimacy of others’ perspectives.
Social media adds another dimension to this process. Although these platforms expand access to information and allow different voices to participate in public debate, they can also facilitate the circulation of decontextualized content and misinformation, distorting people’s understanding of political events.
A study published in 2024 in the International Journal of Public Opinion Research analyzed misinformation claims submitted to fact-checking organizations during Brazil‘s 2022 elections, comparing content received through WhatsApp with posts on Twitter and Kwai.
The research illustrates how misinformation can be investigated across different platforms during periods of intense political competition. In this context, messages shared without verification can contribute to the spread of distorted interpretations and make it harder to understand events.
Furthermore, the speed of the digital environment can create pressure for users to take an immediate position on events that require historical and political context.
Instead of following how a situation develops, acknowledging uncertainty, or reconsidering their interpretations, some discussions begin to operate according to the logic of instant reaction, in which demonstrating loyalty to a particular group can seem more important than understanding what is happening.
This does not mean that social media is solely responsible for polarization, but rather that the way these platforms operate can influence how disagreements are amplified and perceived.
In this context, polarization also affects how the very idea of peace is received. When acknowledging another person’s perspective is interpreted as a sign of weakness or a concession to an adversary, negotiation is met with suspicion.
Listening is no longer seen as part of conflict resolution and may instead be mistaken for an obligation to abandon one’s own convictions. This difficulty in distinguishing dialogue from agreement is one of the main obstacles to building peace.
Negotiating Without Agreeing: Paths Toward Peace
If polarization makes it harder to recognize common interests, building peace requires more than generic calls for tolerance or appeals for opposing sides to set aside their differences.
In armed conflicts, ending violence depends on negotiations, political decisions, security mechanisms, and, in many cases, the involvement of international mediators. These processes can move forward even when the parties involved maintain profound disagreements, provided that conditions exist for negotiating specific objectives and establishing commitments.
Colombia offers a concrete example of how negotiations can transform a prolonged conflict. In November 2016, the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) signed a peace agreement after decades of fighting.
According to the United Nations Verification Mission in Colombia, nearly 9,000 weapons were handed over for destruction, while approximately 12,000 former combatants were formally enrolled in the reintegration process in 2025.
The former guerrilla group also began participating in institutional politics. These measures show how negotiations can create pathways to replace armed activity with political and social mechanisms, even after decades of violence.
Despite these advances, in its 2025 assessment, the United Nations noted that progress had been uneven, with challenges involving access to land and housing, the presence of the state in certain regions, and the activities of illegal economies.
These obstacles demonstrate that signing an agreement does not, by itself, guarantee lasting peace.
The Colombian experience shows that negotiating does not mean reaching full agreement on the past or on every issue that gave rise to a conflict. In many cases, the initial goal is to establish conditions for ending violence and create mechanisms that allow disagreements to be managed through other means.
This does not eliminate the need for accountability, reparations, or recognition of victims, but it demonstrates that deep differences do not, in themselves, prevent the pursuit of political solutions.
So, is peace still possible in a polarized world?
Perhaps the answer lies not in expecting disagreements to disappear, but in preventing them from becoming insurmountable barriers to coexistence and negotiation.
In a world where conflicts are often reduced to disputes between opposing sides, recognizing the diversity of perspectives is an important step toward understanding that no society can be reduced to the decisions of its representatives.
This does not mean that dialogue alone can resolve wars or eliminate historical disputes.
Building peace requires political decisions, concrete commitments, the protection of rights, and mechanisms to address the underlying causes of conflict. At the same time, no lasting solution can be achieved by ignoring the people affected by violence.
Nevertheless, recognizing the humanity of those cast as adversaries can open the door to alternatives that the logic of permanent opposition tends to exclude.
Peace does not require a world without differences, but rather the possibility of navigating them without turning the existence of others into a permanent threat.
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The article above was edited by Julia Ide.
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