Affective blocs: Understanding affective polarization in multiparty systems

Kekkonen, Arto; Ylä‐Anttila, Tuomas

doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2021.102367

Cited by 47 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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Section: Data and Contextmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…Doing so allows us to examine whether a different image of how a party system is configured emerges depending on which item we use. As described above, party attitudes in Finland (Kekkonen and Ylä-Anttila, 2021) and other multiparty systems (Harteveld, 2021) form predictable patterns. We should expect our data to match these earlier findings.…”

Section: Comparing Party Like-dislike Ratings and Partisan Social Dis...mentioning

confidence: 89%

“…From a comparative perspective, the level of affective polarization in Finland has been moderate (Reiljan, 2020;Wagner, 2021), but it reached a new high with the 2019 election (Kekkonen and Ylä-Anttila, 2021;Kawecki, 2022). At the time of this study, the electorate was split into blocs with partly overlapping attitudes and party loyalties Im et al, 2019;Kekkonen and Ylä-Anttila, 2021). Mutual positive like-dislike evaluations could be used to distinguish three or four blocs in the Finnish electorate: a red-green bloc, favorable toward LA, GL, and SDP; a bourgeois bloc, aligned with NCP and CPF; a bloc aligned with the Finns Party, which was largely negative toward all other parties, but somewhat overlapped with the bourgeois bloc; and a significant proportion of people who could be viewed as "moderates" (Kekkonen and Ylä-Anttila, 2021).…”

Section: Data and Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Since then, the term has been eagerly adopted by political scientists studying other countries, mainly in Europe, or doing cross-country comparisons. These researchers have presented evidence that affective polarization is present, and is often increasing, in many European countries (Lauka et al, 2018;Gidron et al, 2019;Reiljan, 2020;Boxell et al, 2021;Kekkonen and Ylä-Anttila, 2021;Wagner, 2021;Kawecki, 2022). Studies have also yielded many insights as to what is driving these developments, or what consequences they are having (e.g., Hernández et al, 2021;Reiljan and Ryan, 2021;Kawecki, 2022;Torcal and Carty, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Studies have also yielded many insights as to what is driving these developments, or what consequences they are having (e.g., Hernández et al, 2021;Reiljan and Ryan, 2021;Kawecki, 2022;Torcal and Carty, 2022). Some researchers have also looked for patterns in partisan affect in order to better understand the configurations that an affectively polarized multiparty system can take, and the lines of division that may emerge (Harteveld, 2021;Kekkonen and Ylä-Anttila, 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Puzzles in affective polarization research: Party attitudes, partisan social distance, and multiple party identification

et al. 2022

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Affective polarization refers to people having favorable attitudes toward their preferred political parties, or inparties, along with their supporters, and negative attitudes toward other parties, or outparties, and their supporters. Originally an American concept, there is now growing interest in studying (AP) in European countries characterized by multiparty systems. So far, researchers have primarily focused on like-dislike ratings when measuring affect, which has relegated another important aspect to the background, namely attitudes toward ordinary supporters of parties. Open questions also remain relating to how political ingroups and outgroups should be conceptualized in situations with large numbers of relevant political parties. We examine these puzzles using data from an online panel in Finland. First, we measure partisan social distance, or feelings toward interacting with supporters of different parties, in addition to commonly used like-dislike ratings of parties. We find that social distance differs from party like-dislike ratings in that respondents are less likely to report animosity toward outparty supporters. Second, we measure multiple party identification based on party support and closeness, and find that people commonly have not one, but many potential inparties. Finally, we build two individual-level AP measures and apply them using both like-dislike ratings and social distance scales. One of the measures is based on identifying a single inparty, while the other takes the possibility of multiple inparties into account. We find that choosing which type of attitude to measure is more consequential for the outcome than how partisanship is operationalized. Our results and discussion clarify relationships between AP and related constructs, and highlight the necessity to consider the political and social context when measuring AP and interpreting results.

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