Competing Identities and Affective Polarization: A Cross-National Analysis

• In Event: Public Opinion Virtual Poster Session

Abstract

Recent scholarship pays keen attention to increasing hostility and distrust across party lines, known as affective polarization, and highlights the characteristics of partisan-ideological alignment as its major explanation. By combining a conjoint experiment with decision-making games from behavioral economics, we design a survey experiment that allows us to evaluate the strength of partisan divide relative to other competing identities and to explore the multidimensionality of identity structure in a broad cross-national context of 25 European countries. We find a dominance of partisan identity compared to other traditional cleavages such as social class and religion, but also surprising importance of European identity. Our results confirm that partisan-ideological alignment, defined in both the left-right dimension and the dimension of European integration, strengthens affective polarization. In contrast to the findings from the United States, affective polarization is mainly driven by in-group favoritism.

Authors

• Hyeonho Hahm, Hanyang University

• David Dominik Hilpert, University of Mannheim