Political participation or partisanship ?

Voter registration this time in Bangladesh under the interim government has been setting records. With public interest so high, it's easier predicting a blockbuster general election on 29th December if everything goes as planned. But can our democracy survive all this heightened interest in the political process? After all we've a legacy of family-dominated politics, and the link between political participation and partisanship is often unclear. We observed in the past that partisans participated in politics, and voted more regularly and with greater enthusiasm than those who resided in the ideological middle. Although most experts then and now agree that high voter participation is generally a good thing, but we also observed that partisanship-driven turnout also has its dark side.
Extreme interest goes with extreme partisanship, and might culminate in rigid fanaticism that could destroy the democratic processes, if generalised. Therefore, a lack of interest by some people is not without its benefits too. In other words, a healthy democracy needs the uncommitted middle, the fence straddled guys and the apathetic as much as it the firebrand activists. Indeed, in a nation so torn by the obsession of partisans, it is those of us who aren't all that in love of either side who give politicians the room to compromise, which, of course, is the art that politics is supposed to be all about. But these days, sceptics and the uncommitted are becoming few and far between. The number of voters in the middle has become smaller and smaller, and hence there are fewer people willing to hear what both sides have to say. In the late 1970s, or early 1980s, maybe 30 out of 100 voters could be persuaded to vote for either major party. According to educated guess, that number may have decreased to less than 10 per cent today. The squeezing out of moderates in the electorate has since led to the decline in the number of moderates in our politics.
Some have blamed the rise of mass-politicisation for the polarisation. Others point to the hyper-partisan areas that parliament members now draw each decade to protect their incumbency. But there is something much more profound and far-reaching going on. Given all the media choices they have, Bangladeshis are increasingly segregating into fenced communications communities, choosing to read and hear only the things that bolster their views. More important, it is found that Bangladeshis over the last 30 years or so also are literally, physically segregating themselves by ideology. Before 1975, only a few had a partisan mind, but in between 1991 to 2006, more and more partisans saw total victory, and homogeneity breeds more homogeneity. Political minorities tend to vote less and even withdraw from other forms of civic life, while political majorities participate in politics, and vote more. In any given uneven environment, the triumphant majority opinion hardens, the whites become whiter and the blues bluer, and cross-party communication stops. And when communication stops, each side begins to view the other as more extreme.
What this all means is that as we separate ourselves into ever-narrower groups, our votes are becoming more of an affirmation of a group than an expression of a civic opinion. As we seclude ourselves in like-minded enclaves, we're finding it harder to reach a national consensus.