Affective polarization in Europe

Abstract

Affective polarization, a concept that originated in the USA, has increasingly been studied in Europe’s multi-party systems. This form of polarization refers to the extent to which party supporters dislike one another – or, more technically, to the difference between the positive feelings towards the supporters of one’s own political party and the negative feelings towards the supporters of other parties. Measuring this gap in Europe’s multi-party systems requires researchers to make various important decisions relating to conceptualization and measurement. Often, our focus could instead lie on assessing partisan hostility or negative party affect, which is easier to measure. While recent research on affective polarization in Europe has already taught USA lot, both about affective polarization and about political conflict in Europe, I nevertheless suggest that research in this field faces four challenges, namely developing better measures, more sophisticated theories, clearer accounts of affective polarization’s importance and successful ways of reducing negative party affect, if this is indeed desirable.

Asymmetric affective polarization regarding COVID-19 vaccination in six European countries

“…In a next step, we applied the most widely used measurement approach for affective polarization, the feeling thermometer 8 , 40 , in which respondents are asked to rate their feelings about a specific subject on a temperature scale 9 , 40 . First, we dichotomized the variable on the position regarding COVID-19 vaccination and classified respondents who indicated a value from 0 to 4 as opponents of COVID-19 vaccination (anti-vaccination group) and those who indicated a value from 6 to 10 as supporters of COVID-19 vaccination (pro-vaccination group).…”

“…Second, we employ two common approaches to measuring affective polarization—thermometer scores and character trait ratings—between the pro-vaccination and the anti-vaccination group, thereby shedding additional light on the conflict around COVID-19 vaccination. Third, our study contributes to our understanding of the social and political consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, because numerous studies have shown that affective polarization destabilizes social cohesion and undermines democratic norms 9 , 18 – 22 . What is more, understanding vaccine-related divides is crucial for the development of effective public health policies, as affective polarization hinders their implementation 22 , 23 , thus undermining efforts to control the spread of infectious diseases and to limit their consequences for the health of the citizenry 24 – 26 .…”

“…To fill this lacuna, we apply the concept of affective polarization, i.e., the emotional attachment to in-group members and hostility toward out-group members, to the issue of COVID-19 vaccination 8 , 9 . Polarization has traditionally been understood in ideological terms, implying a divergence of political preferences of citizens, political elites, or parties 10 .…”

“…Affective polarization, understood as emotional attachment to in-group partisans and hostility toward out-group partisans, has become an important component of modern democracies 8 , 9 . Rooted in social identity theory 31 , the concept of affective polarization has long been studied with a focus on partisanship 8 , 32 .…”

Does polarization increase participation? A systematic literature review and meta-analysis

“…Experimental work could strengthen the body of evidence regarding the effect of polarization on participation. More work is also needed in the area of measurement to better understand the properties of existing measures of polarization and develop new ones (Wagner 2024;cf. also Druckman & Levendusky, 2019;Torcal & Comellas, forthcoming).…”