Affective polarization in multiparty systems

Abstract

Affective polarization captures the extent to which citizens feel sympathy towards partisan in-groups and antagonism towards partisan out-groups. This is comparatively easy to assess in two-party systems, but capturing the pattern of affect towards multiple parties is more complex in multiparty systems. This paper first discusses these challenges and then presents different ways of measuring individuallevel affective polarization using like-dislike scores, a widespread measure of party sympathy. Using data for 51 countries and 166 elections from five modules of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, I then show that affective polarization adds to existing concepts as a way of understanding political participation and democratic orientations. Studying affective polarization outside the US could therefore have important consequences for our understanding of citizen perceptions of politics as well as citizen behaviour, but we need the appropriate measures to do so.

Affective Polarization in Multiparty Systems? Comparing Affective Polarization Towards Voters and Parties in Norway and the United States

“…As affective polarization in two‐party systems concerns the extent to which one feels positively about one's own party (the in‐group) and negatively about the ‘other’ party (the out‐group), it is an intuitive concept. However, as Wagner (2020) argues, the task of measuring and theoretically understanding affective polarization in multiparty systems is complex because the ‘other’ party may refer to several other parties.…”

“…However, this solution disregards that multiparty systems consist of several parties. Voters in multiparty systems are not likely to exclusively feel positively about partisans from one party and exclusively negative about all other partisans (Garry 2007; Wagner 2020). Thus, reducing the number of parties likely also decreases the measured level of affective polarization in a multiparty system.…”

“…With this in mind, I focus on an alternative solution that views partisan affective polarization as affective distance from voters between blocs of multiple parties (Reiljan 2020; Wagner 2020). Party blocs can arise, for instance, when a coalition of parties forms government.…”

“…This focus on the United States has led scholars (e.g., Gidron et al 2019; Iyengar et al 2019) to call for more comparative studies on affective polarization. Consequently, a growing body of literature is providing comparative evidence of affective polarization suggesting that the US situation is not unique (Carlin & Love 2016; Hansen & Kosiara‐Pedersen 2017; Huddy et al 2018; Lauka et al 2018; Westwood et al 2018; Gidron et al 2019; Reiljan 2020; Wagner 2020).…”

“…Studies have either mainly focused on measures of affective polarization towards parties , rather than using more direct measures of affective polarization towards voters , or have not accounted for the fact that multiparty systems have several (i.e., not only two or a few) major parties in parliament. On the one hand, studies that have included several parties in multiparty systems, yet have relied on measures of affect towards parties, have not directly addressed polarization as a manifestation of social identity (Wagner 2020). Thus, they cannot necessarily speak to comparative differences in levels of affective polarization towards voters (Druckman & Levendusky 2019).…”