Research on affective polarization has largely focused on partisanship as the source of political social identities. However, identities also form around ideological divisions such as liberal/conservative or left/right, particularly in contexts where ideological divisions are more permanent than parties. In this paper, we study ideological identities and how they influence interpersonal affect. In our survey (n = 2152), conducted in Germany, many individuals declare ideological identities, and these are of similar strength as partisan identities. We also run a conjoint survey experiment where respondents evaluate individuals with varying personal characteristics and, crucially, see varying amounts of information: only ideological affiliation, or also partisanship, policy stances, and/or political interest. We find that ideological affiliation matters for how respondents evaluate individuals, even when extensive additional information is present. However, ideology is slightly less relevant than partisanship, while policy stances are privileged over both. Our findings imply that we should broaden our lens in studying affective polarization to encompass political identities beyond partisanship.

It is often suggested that one way to reduce affective polarization is to remind citizens of a common in-group identity – such as the national one – to bridge partisan divides. Yet, to our knowledge, such a causal link has only been found in the United States, and even there, it has not been tested by exposure to the most common national symbol: the flag. Thus, we still do not know if such implicit yet ubiquitous reminders of national identity, rather than those that explicitly invoke national pride, are able to reduce affective polarization. In order to fill this research gap, we conducted a survey experiment in Sweden and Denmark in 2023/2024, two countries where national flags are omnipresent yet often ‘unwaved’. Using two versions of subtle flag treatments, our results show that in Sweden, subjects who were primed with a picture of the national flag showed lower levels of affective polarization measured as social distancing, but not in terms of trait stereotyping or party dislike. This effect was not mediated, however, by the strengthening of explicit national identity attitudes, such as national pride. These results suggest that flags need indeed not be explicitly waved in order to work their unifying magic.

Measuring affective polarization, defined as the liking for one's political ingroup and the dislike for political outgroups, poses methodological challenges in multiparty systems: evaluations of seven, 13 or even more parties in a survey are costly, time‐consuming and demanding. Some studies therefore use subsets of parties to create brief affective polarization measures. However, it is unclear how this affects the construct and predictive validity of these brief measures, potentially causing problematic inferences. Across 39 countries ($N=\mathrm{>66},\mathrm{>880}$), we demonstrate that brief measures that include ratings of only three to five parties can maintain acceptable validity, as illustrated by strong correlations with full measures and consistent associations with political correlates. The construct and predictive validity of brief measures are best when selecting a set of large, ideologically diverse parties. We provide specific recommendations for the effective measurement of affective polarization in different multiparty systems.

Though many empirical analyses on affective polarization demonstrate that women hold a higher level of affective polarization than men in industrialized democracies, a theoretical explanation for the gender difference is hardly discussed in the literature. Using the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (Module 3) and a causal mediation analysis model, we find that women's higher level of affective polarization in Western Europe is substantially and significantly explained by their stronger disapproval of populist radical right‐wing parties as well as their greater concern for issues around gender and the natural environment. On the one hand, the results confirm that the mediation role of issue politics found in the United States is also observed in Western Europe. On the other hand, the results imply that affective polarization in Western Europe is connected with the politics of the populist radical right.

Scholars increasingly raise concerns about the alleged detrimental impact of affective polarization on citizens’ democratic attitudes. Yet, prior studies on the relationship between affective polarization and democratic support have yielded mixed results: Whereas some scholars report evidence that affective polarization erodes citizens’ support for democracy, others report null findings. In this research note, we posit that one relevant explanation for these mixed results is that the relationship between affective polarization and democratic support is not linear, but rather negatively curvilinear (i.e., an inverted U‐shape). Though extreme levels of affective polarization may harm citizens’ democratic commitments, a moderate amount of affective polarization can strengthen democratic support by heightening the political stakes and stimulating democratic involvement. Employing generalized additive modelling on data from the CNEP collected in Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States, we show strong and robust support for this negatively curvilinear pattern. These findings have important implications for our understanding of the dynamics between affective polarization and democratic support, as well as for the recommended estimation strategies of future studies that aim to explore this relationship.

Affective polarization – that is, antipathy towards political opponents – sits high on the academic and political agenda. This is because it is thought to have a multitude of damaging consequences, both for how citizens view and approach each other and for how they relate to the political system. This study investigates some of the most mentioned and worrying potential consequences of affective polarization at the individual level. Zooming in on Europe, it sheds light on the substantive relationship between partisan antipathy and three kinds of norm‐breaking escalation in the form of avoidance, intolerance and support for violence against party supporters. Methodologically, it unpacks the affective component of polarization, testing to what extent the traditional feeling thermometer performs as a predictor of these three potential outcomes. It then tests alternative expectations of the antecedents of such escalation derived from the intergroup emotions’ literature and the study of political radicalization. This is done using a broad range of both established and new survey items fielded in nationally representative panels between May and November 2020 in two contexts that score relatively low (Norway) and high (the United Kingdom) on affective polarization. They reveal that avoidance, intolerance and support for political violence can be validly measured, and are manifest, in these two European countries, but that they are only weakly correlated to mere dislike of the outgroup. Instead, more severe forms of norm‐breaking escalation depend on the specific nature of the discrete emotions induced beyond dislike (anger, fear or disgust) and are rooted in factors such as relative deprivation, Manicheanism, and dark personality traits (psychopathy, Machiavellianism and narcissism). We discuss the implications for the way polarization is theorized and measured.

Growing evidence exists about the importance of dark personality traits – narcissism, psychopathy and Machiavellianism – in political leaders, broadly leading to heightened political aggressiveness and partisan conflict. Building on this expanding research agenda, we study the possible association between dark personality in politicians and deepened affective polarization – that is, increased affective distance between partisan groups coupled with stronger dislike for out‐parties – in the public. We do so by linking a large‐scale expert survey (NEGex) and a collection of post‐election surveys (CSES), including information for more than 90 leading candidates having competed in 40 elections worldwide. Our results show that the dark personality of top politicians can be associated with upticks in affective polarization in the public – but only when it comes to the personality of in‐party candidates (that is, a candidate from voters' preferred party), and only for high levels of ideological proximity between the candidate and the voter.

This research note investigates the scope of regional variations in levels of affective polarization across Europe and contrasts it with national scores to highlight the theoretical and empirical interest of a disaggregated approach. Using all waves of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) dataset, we compute an affective polarization score for 143,857 individuals and aggregate these scores in 190 regions nested in 30 countries, across a period ranging from 1996 to 2019, covering 105 elections. We map variations in affective polarization across regions, both cross‐sectionally and longitudinally. Our results reveal that the range of scores is larger across regions than between countries and that approximately half of the variation in affective polarization scores can be attributed to within‐country heterogeneity. Second, we find that some countries display rather homogeneous regional patterns, while others display heterogeneous scores. Third, we show how the increase in the affective polarization scores over time at the national level can be driven by sharp changes in some regions only, while other regions remain stable. Overall, these results point to the added value of adopting a regional approach to the study of affective polarization.

While scholars have closely examined the intensification of negative affect across party lines during elections, less is known about the decline of partisan hostility in the aftermath of election campaigns. Synthesizing insights from research on electoral rules and political psychology, we theorize and empirically test two such mechanisms of post‐election negative affect decline. The first is that of winners' generosity: the expectation that self‐perceived election winners will express warmer feelings towards political opponents. The second is that of co‐governance, which predicts that shared coalition status leads to warmer affective evaluations among governing parties. We provide evidence that these mechanisms operate as pressure valves of negative partisan affect. We also show that while co‐governance reduces negative affect between parties who govern together, it fuels negative affect among supporters of opposition parties. The empirical analyses leverage a uniquely uncertain political period following the 2021 Israeli elections, around which we conducted an original panel study. Our findings advance the comparative polarization literature and connect psychological and institutional accounts of temporal fluctuations in partisan affect.

This article asks whether the willingness of partisans to condone democratic backsliding is a uniquely American phenomenon and explores why partisans would tolerate a party leader subverting democratic norms. We focus on executive aggrandizement as a key mechanism through which democratic backsliding occurs and develop three potential explanations for why partisans would accept the weakening of checks on the power of the executive. First, in a context of affective polarization, partisans may condone executive aggrandizement in order to advantage their party and disadvantage the opponent. Second, partisans may be willing to trade off democratic norms in pursuit of their ideological agenda. Third, partisans may take cues from the behaviour of party elites. These explanations are tested using a candidate‐choice conjoint experiment administered to Americans and Canadians in 2019 that involved respondents choosing between hypothetical candidates in intra‐party contests. Regardless of party, partisans in both countries proved willing to choose candidates who would loosen legislative and judicial restraints on the executive. While the partisan advantage explanation only held for strong Republicans in the United States, partisans in Canada and the United States alike were apparently willing to weaken restraints on the executive for the sake of their ideological agendas, at least in the case of abortion. Finally, Republicans who approved of the Trump presidency were much less likely than other Republicans to punish undemocratic candidates, lending support to the cue‐taking explanation.

Affective polarization is increasingly evident around the world. This has been attributed in part to residential segregation by partisanship. The ‘Big Sort’ has meant that neighbourhoods in the United States, and elsewhere, have become more homogenous in terms of vote. Yet there is little systematic evidence on the relationship between homogenous partisan neighbourhoods and affective polarization. Does living among fellow partisans make people more negative towards the other side? In this Research Note, we use unique data from Britain to show that while people accurately recognize that their local area is more or less politically homogenous, neighbourhood political homogeneity is not correlated with any measure of affective polarization. These findings are robust to the type of political divide (partisanship or Brexit identity), the level of geography, length of residence and controls for ideology and social characteristics. We therefore suggest that while geographical sorting is an important phenomenon, it is unlikely to be a major cause of affective polarization.

Partisan‐based affective polarization has been posited as a key explanation for citizens' tolerance towards democratic backsliding, with voters more likely to overlook democratic violations conducted by in‐party candidates. Our study theorizes and empirically explores the reverse perspective on this relationship: focusing on the role of the opposition, we submit that backsliding may crystallize an affective dislike among opposition supporters towards the governing party and its supporters that stems from a regime divide over democracy itself. To probe the plausibility of this argument, we leverage original survey data collected in Hungary, where democratic backsliding under the Fidesz government has resulted in an extensive remodelling of the political system since 2010. Our results point to a government–opposition divide in partisan affect and show how liberal democratic attitudes, especially among opposition party supporters, play into this dynamic. We suggest that where backsliding persists over a longer period, this process can shift even multi‐party systems towards increasing bipolarity along what we term a ‘democratic divide’. Ultimately, our study proposes a novel lens on the dynamics of democratic backsliding by suggesting that affective polarization may play a positive role in backsliding contexts by uniting the opposition around the defence of democracy. Our findings point to a number of future research avenues to further analyse the interactive relationship between democratic backsliding and affective polarization.

Coalition governments are said to make voters of coalition parties feel more warmly towards supporters of their coalition partners and, hence, reduce affective polarization. However, even countries frequently governed by coalitions commonly experience high levels of affective polarization. We argue that for coalitions to reduce affective polarization, they must be perceived as successful. In coalitions that are perceived as unsuccessful, voters will not develop an overarching coalition identity. Such coalitions fail to change whom voters consider as their in‐group, therefore not mitigating affective polarization. We test this argument using the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems data. We find that the positive effects of coalition membership reported in previous work are exclusively driven by voters who are satisfied with the coalition's performance. Coalitions have no depolarizing effect among voters dissatisfied with their governing performance. These results question whether democratic institutions themselves can mitigate affective polarization and instead demonstrate the responsibility of elites to make inter‐party cooperation work.

Accepting defeat in the aftermath of elections is crucial for the stability of democracies. But in times of intense polarization, the voluntary consent of electoral losers seems less obvious. In this paper, I study whether affective and perceived ideological polarization amplify the winner–loser gap in political support. Using multilevel growth curve modelling on pre and post‐election panel data from the British Election Study Internet Panel collected during the 2015 and 2019 UK general elections, I show that the winner–loser gap is indeed more pronounced amongst voters with higher levels of affective and perceived ideological polarization. Moreover, the results illustrate that polarized voters experience a stark decrease in their support for the political system following their electoral loss. Given the high and, in some Western democracies, rising polarization levels, these findings have important implications for losers’ consent and the stability of democracies in election times.

In politically divided environments like Thailand, affective polarization (AP) and social distrust threaten democratic stability and hinder consensus-building. Using an original survey (N = 2,016) conducted in 2021 during intense political turmoil, we examine how perceived ideological differences and media consumption shape AP. Our findings show that perceived—rather than actual—ideological differences drive out-group animosity, affecting trust in policymaking, political discourse, and attitudes toward justice. We also highlight the role of echo chambers created by the consumption of one-sided media that exaggerates polarization and amplifies hostility toward the out-group.

This study examines the behavioral consequences of partisan group composition on cooperation in a setting where cooperation is mutually beneficial but unethical. Collaborative corruption highlights that corruption is not a solitary act but necessitates cooperation. Based on the premise that partisanship serves as a social identity, leading ordinary citizens to reward co-partisans and penalize out-partisans, we expect that collaborative corruption is higher in partisan-wise homogeneous groups. To test this expectation, we conducted a preregistered, large-scale experiment among U.S. voters playing an online version of the collaborative cheating game by Weisel and Shalvi. We find no evidence that partisan homogeneity affects collaborative cheating. These results suggest a critical scope condition: while partisan homogeneity improves cooperation in social dilemmas, it does not extend to contexts of unethical collaboration. They also refute common concerns that partisan homogeneity may facilitate cooperative corruption.

This Registered Report examines urban-rural tensions in Sweden – a historically egalitarian, multi-party welfare state with strong geographical equalization schemes, making it a least-likely case for place-based resentment theories. Using an online survey experiment (n = 2,051), we measured resentment through perceptions of in-group and out-group, and by experimentally varying whether political statements came from rural or urban politicians. Rural respondents showed stronger in-group identification, greater place-based resentment, and more negative stereotypes of their out-group than urban respondents. However, we find no evidence of place-based bias – that is, that rural respondents are less receptive to urban politicians’ statements, or vice versa. These findings reveal clear urban-rural tensions in a context often considered unlikely for such divides, underscoring the role of regional identities in political discourse and policy in multi-party welfare states beyond Anglo-Saxon settings, while indicating that these tensions do not translate into systematic bias in evaluating political statements.

Political polarization has transcended political arenas, influencing personal decisions. While such biases are often ascribed to out-group animosity, a person’s “party tag” may act as a proxy for other characteristics, overstating partisanship’s role in private life. To explore this, we focus on online dating, using a conjoint experiment with 3,000 UK participants to isolate the effect of partisanship from other traits. Our findings indicate that the influence of partisanship is on par with conventional criteria like physical appearance, yet tolerance for opposing views plays an even stronger role. We also find imporant partisan asymmetries: both groups favour co-partisans, but Labour supporters are twice as likely to do so. Counter-stereotypic profiles reduce bias among Conservatives but heighten it among Labour supporters.

The American public is increasingly affectively polarized. A growing body of research has associated affective polarization with two key phenomena: ideological polarization and social group sorting. Although there is ample evidence that social group sorting, particularly along racial and ethnic lines, is driving Republicans’ affect toward the Democratic Party, it is not clear how it shapes Democrats’, particularly White Democrats’, feelings toward the predominantly White Republican Party. We propose a third model that bridges these two theoretical approaches, a racial ideology model that helps explain Democrats’ feelings toward the Republican Party. Specifically, we argue that Democrats increasingly dislike Republicans because Republicans are seen as standing in opposition to racially progressive policies. Using a preregistered conjoint experiment, we find that Americans across party lines see Republicans as opposing efforts to reduce racial inequality and that this perception is associated with negative affect toward the Republican Party among both White and non-White Democrats.