Word.ws English Dictionary

wedge politics

wedge politics noun: a strategy or pattern of behavior by a politician, political party, or advocacy group which is intended to have a divisive effect on one's political opponents or on the electorate, especially by emphasizing an issue which polarizes opinion along racial, regional, or other demographic lines.

Noun

wedge politics (plural wedge politics)

  1. A strategy or pattern of behavior by a politician, political party, or advocacy group which is intended to have a divisive effect on one's political opponents or on the electorate, especially by emphasizing an issue which polarizes opinion along racial, regional, or other demographic lines.
    • It was an ugly example of wedge politics, the politics of division.1991 October 29, “Racial politics: Duke victory made GOP fear it had gone too far”, in Arizona Daily Star, USA
    • John Howard . . . has, quite superbly, controlled the political agenda by wedge politics—by dividing the electorate on some emotional issue and forcing the Opposition to side with the moral but unpopular position.2003 March 15, Alan Ramsey, “Hollow ring to Sir Echo”, in Sydney Morning Herald, Australia, retrieved 20 Sep 2010

Forms of wedge politics

pluralwedge politics

Questions about wedge politics

What does wedge politics mean?
Wedge politics means a strategy or pattern of behavior by a politician, political party, or advocacy group which is intended to have a divisive effect on one's political opponents or on the electorate, especially by emphasizing an issue which polarizes opinion along racial, regional, or other demographic lines.
What part of speech is wedge politics?
Wedge politics is a noun.
What is the plural of wedge politics?
The plural of wedge politics is wedge politics.

Words near wedge politics in the dictionary

  1. wedge heels
  2. wedge issue
  3. wedge issues
  4. wedge of circles
  5. wedge pea
  6. wedge politics
  7. wedge prism
  8. wedge prisms
  9. wedge product
  10. wedge products
  11. wedge salad

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: wedge politics (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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