Ideological Tripolarization, Partisan Tribalism and Institutional Trust: The Foundations of Affective Polarization in the Swedish Multiparty System

Abstract

Currently, very little is known about the individual level foundations of affective polarization outside the US context. This paper addresses this research gap by exploring the predictors of affective polarization in Sweden, using nationally representative survey data. From 2010 till the 2018 elections, the Swedish multiparty system was divided into two affectively converged mainstream party blocs that were moderately polarized between each other, and an asymmetrically polarized populist right party that invoked significantly more hostility from the supporters of mainstream parties than vice versa. To unpack the foundations of affective polarization in such a tripolar configuration, we employ a methodological approach that distinguishes not just between in-and outparties but also in-and out-blocs, and separates different conflict dimensions. We find that: (1) voters with stronger partisan identities and more extreme political attitudes exhibit higher levels of affective polarization. The latter, however, is a better predictor of direct dislike towards political opponents; (2) the effects of political attitudes correspond to the tripolar nature of the party system: while affective polarization between the centre-right and -left blocs is mostly driven by socioeconomic positions, the hostility towards Sweden Democrats links predominantly to cultural issues, most notably immigration; (3) institutional trust has a two-edged relationship with affective polarization: populist right voters that trust the country's central institutions more, are less polarized towards mainstream blocs, whereas among centreright voters, higher trust associates with stronger animosity towards Sweden Democrats. We believe that these findings could have broad implications for affective polarization research in multiparty systems.

Intergroup threat and affective polarization in a multi-party system

“…Our findings support the previous research in observing affective polarization in Sweden (Boxell et al, 2020;Reiljan & Ryan, 2021), despite that these studies differ by using the like-dislike scale measure and left-right blocs with the Sweden Democrats separated (Reiljan & Ryan, 2021), or by restricting the index to be based on the two largest parties only (Boxell et al, 2020). Although we find similar patterns using both the like-dislike scale, the trait ratings and the social distance measure, the results have greater comparability to many findings in the literature on the US case.…”

“…First, we wanted to explore individual-level features that explain affective polarization in a multi-party system and to anchor this in the framework of social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). Our results show that the Swedish voters display affective polarization in a manner consistent with the findings of previous research both in a Swedish context (Boxell et al, 2020;Reiljan & Ryan, 2021;Renström et al, 2020) and in other multi-party systems, such as the Netherlands (Harteveld, 2021).…”

“…In the data from 2013, we analyze a like-dislike scale, and in the 2019 data, we use supporter trait ratings and a social distancing variable to measure affective polarization. Importantly, these survey data allow us to apply the latter type of affective polarization measures to Sweden for the first time, as previous works have relied only on like-dislike scales for in-and outgroup parties (Boxell et al, 2020;Reiljan & Ryan, 2021;Ryan & Reiljan, 2018). It is also one of the first applications of such affective polarization measures (supporter traits and social distancing) in a multi-party system.…”

Delving into the divide: how ideological differences fuel out-party hostility in a multi-party context

“…More recently, however, scholars have set out to study this question in (European) multi-party systems. Although findings show that social identity and partisanship do play a role in driving the negative feelings towards out-parties and partisans, they find that ideological differences equally (Viciana et al, 2019 in Spain) or even more strongly (Huddy et al, 2018 andReiljan andRyan, 2021 in Sweden) explain these feelings. However, many of these studies focus solely on the affect towards the own party and the most disliked party, essentially reducing the complexity of a multiparty system back to only two parties or blocks (Huddy et al, 2018;Westwood et al, 2018;Viciana et al, 2019).…”

Polarisation in Southern Europe: Elites, Party Conflicts and Negative Partisanship

“…The comparative study of affective polarisation in multiparty systems is still in its early days (Boxell, Gentzkow & Shapiro 2020;Harteveld 2019;Gidron, Adams & Horne 2020;Lauka, McCoy & Firat 2018;Reiljan 2020;Reiljan & Ryan 2021). However, it is an interesting and promising perspective for analysing developments in Southern Europe.…”