Political polarization erodes trust in public institutions, it damages political process, negatively affects economic development, distracts social development and relationships in society, and it may eventually lead to the backsliding of democracy.

On March 21st, the ISET Policy Institute convened the 'Polarization Harms' event at Hotel Stamba, welcoming esteemed scholars and experts to delve into the repercussions of media polarization.

The Index shows an increase in media polarization since 2020, particularly acute since early 2022. While the Index captures significant polarization around specific events like elections, its response varies across different events and developments.

While there is a consensus on high polarization in Georgia as confirmed by the public perception of increasing polarization on one hand and the call of the country's development partners towards depolarization, there has not been any tool available to measure and monitor the polarization dynamics. On this basis, the ISET Policy Institute developed a media polarization index to explore and measure the dynamics of media polarization in Georgia.

As I am writing these lines, Russian tanks are moving deeper into the territory of my country, Ukraine, and emotions are threatening to overwhelm me. But emotions cannot shake what we, as economics scholars, value the most: devotion to truth and careful, impartial use of facts and logic to arrive at conclusions.