Polarization and Fault Lines in Electoral Politics

• In Event: Causes of Polarization and Potential Paths to Transcend It

Abstract

Political polarization has the potential to divide societies. When polarization overlaps with other social identities, it can become dangerous for social harmony. The more partisan sorting coincides with social cleavages, the more politics threatens to take on a more contentious and adversarial tone. This appears to have happened in the United States, where political divisions create partisan bias and stereotypes that inform (and even constrain) social relationships. To what extent is the same happening in other advanced industrialized democracies with similar electoral systems? Answering this query requires assessing three questions. First, to what extent does partisanship map onto social identities? Second, how well do citizens recognize this mapping? Third, is this mapping shared across partisan groups? Drawing on large datasets from the 2019 and 2021 Canadian federal elections that enable subgroup analysis, we utilize survey questions on partisanship, affective partisanship, party stereotypes and social group associations to develop a clear picture of the support bases of political parties as well as how well public perceptions match up with reality.

Authors

• Allison Harell, Université du Québec à Montréal

• Laura Stephenson, University of Western Ontario