How Warm are Partisan Political Interactions? A Frequency-based Measure of Affective Fractionalization

Abstract

Affective polarization measures account for partisans’ feelings towards their own party versus its opponent(s), irrespective of how frequently partisans encounter co-partisans versus out-partisans in everyday interactions and public discourse. However, the social impact of cross-party hostility depends on both the intensity of dislike and the frequency with which this comes into play. We develop an affective fractionalization measure that accounts for both factors and apply it to longitudinal survey data from 20 Western publics. This fractionalization perspective implies that the partisans in countries with fewer dominant parties – notably the United States – may interact less frequently with out-partisans, which might cushion the negative social impact of inter-party animosity. At the party level, partisans of smaller and more radical parties are particularly isolated because they strongly dislike out-partisans but are highly likely to interact with them. Over time, affective fractionalization has increased in most countries, partly due to rising cross-party hostility but primarily because most Western party systems have become increasingly fragmented.

Partisan Affect in Times of Fractionalization: Visualizing Who Likes Whom in Germany, 1977 to 2020

“…In most Western publics, party systems have fractionalized in recent decades (Hudde et al 2022). Suppose we randomly draw two voters in Germany.…”

“…Since then, that chance has dropped sharply to about 20 percent in 2021. Fractionalization increases the importance of out-partisan dislike: the more often people can expect to encounter supporters from other parties (which is a function of fractionalization and network segregation), the more important it is that they get along with them (Hudde et al 2022).…”