Increasing political polarization is often seen as one of the contemporary challenges to liberal democracy, and there is an ongoing debate about polarization’s causes and consequences. High levels of polarization are thought to, among other things, reduce social cohesion by increasing the distance - whether ideological or emotional - between groups based on partisan affinities, thereby increasing the cost of inter-group cooperation, finding common ground, and working toward shared goals. Moreover, high polarization increases support for illiberal parties and the readiness to favor partisan goals at the cost of democratic principles, which pose a direct threat to contemporary democracy. Increases in polarization have also been linked to the rise of populist parties and to anti-populist mobilization, which further increase polarization.
While research on polarization is extensive, it continues to be dominated by studies of the United States, and is fragmented due to the variety of conceptualizations and operationalizations of polarization. Thus, the aim of this session is thus to examine the causes and consequences of political polarization in Europe with an eye on reconciling different analytical approaches.
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Class Effects on Turnout and Voting for Right-Wing-Populists: A joint causal analysis
Alexander Gattig1, Niklas Marx2
1University of Bremen, Germany; 2University of Bielefeld, Germany
Research on right-wing populism and research on class voting are central for social scientists in general and a core topic of political science in particular. Consequently, much research investigates these topics both separately and jointly. This research repeatedly demonstrates a higher propensity of the manual classes to vote for right-wing populist parties (RPP), which is generally attributed to a mix of socio-economic factors, cultural aspects, e.g. attitudes towards gender equality or migration, personality or psychological factors, e.g. the Big Five or anger, and macro-level factors, e.g. the openness of the respective economy or a country’s welfare state. Socio-economic factors are often operationalized by (different variants of) an individual’s social class and research often concludes that, while relevant, economic factors are somewhat less important than their counterparts. We contribute to this debate and argue that previous research underestimates this effect of social class on the propensity to vote for a RPP due to a neglect to properly account a) for unobserved variables that simultaneously influence social class position and the propensity to vote for RPP and b) for the interdependencies of turnout and the vote decision for particular parties, such as anti-elite RPP. As to a), individuals self-select into occupations which in turn form the basis of social classes, this self-selection is at least partially based on factors related to voting for RPP. As to b) voting for RPP and turnout are interdependent processes since RPP strongly mobilize previous non-voters. We analyse data from the 8th ESS wave and combine matching estimators and Heckman regressions, thereby comparing results with those of standard regression approaches. We therefore estimate the effect of social class on RPP using a counter-factual approach – how much does shifting an individuals’ social class affect voting for RPP if social class were randomly “assigned” to individuals and if all classes had identical propensities to vote. We demonstrate that failing to control for the above-mentioned sources of bias in fact strongly underestimates the effect of social class on RPP. This underestimation of the “true effect” is mostly due to classes’ different propensities to vote and to a lesser extent to social classes being self-selected. Put differently, a Heckman regression alters substantial interpretations while a matching estimator does not. Our findings also have implications for the ongoing debate as to whether the effect of social class on voting has diminished, remained constant, or has been replaced by new cleavages.
Does Partisan Polarisation Undermine Democratic Accountability? Evidence from 32 European Democracies
Veronika Patkós, Bendegúz Plesz
HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences, Hungary
This study examines the impact of political polarisation on democratic accountability in 32 European democracies, using all ten rounds of data from the European Social Survey (ESS). The study is rooted in a growing concern about the potential threats of political polarisation to the functioning of democracy. The last decade has seen a surge of interest in political polarisation, with growing concern among political scientists about its potential threat to democratic functioning. Empirical evidence suggests that various forms of socio-political polarisation are associated with weaker democratic and economic performance. Political polarisation has been shown to contribute to the emergence of severe political instability, the rise of illiberalism and authoritarianism. This paper seeks to unravel the link between partisan polarisation and a crucial aspect of democratic functioning, democratic accountability.
Accountability arises from the relationship between representatives and the represented and is considered the bedrock of liberal democracy (Dahl 1971). Theories of the links between polarisation and accountability suggest that polarisation deteriorates democratic accountability primarily by increasing the costs of abandoning one's original party and switching to another camp. Similarly, previous evidence shows that polarisation can lead to the blaming of political incivility solely on the other side and to increased reluctance to compromise with the other side. Similarly, polarisation can render it almost impossible for partisans to abandon their party's candidates. Although voters generally value democracy and distinguish between democratic violations and practices, they may be reluctant to punish poor performance or even undemocratic behaviour by their politicians if the perceived cost of voting for another candidate is too high.
This study uses country-year aggregated data from all ten rounds of the ESS database for 32 European countries, complemented by macro data from the World Bank and V-Dem databases. This allows for robust testing of the results with different measures of polarisation and accountability. The study uses multivariate regression models to predict the impact of changes in polarisation on accountability. The results indicate that, consistent with the hypothesis, polarisation is negatively related to accountability. This main result holds - with some minor exceptions - across different types and operationalisations of both polarisation and accountability. This research contributes to the ongoing discourse on the challenges posed by political polarisation in contemporary democracies. By shedding light on the relationship between partisan polarisation and democratic accountability, it highlights the need for further research into this complex relationship to ensure the health and functioning of democratic systems.
From Threat to Polarisation: the Role of Threats, Leaders and Institutional Choices in Strengthening Partisan Polarisation in Europe
Veronika Patkós
HUN-REN Centre for Social Sciences, Hungary
This paper aims to enhance our understanding of the causes of societies’ partisan polarisation. Theoretically, it relies on the General Process Model of threat and defence (GPM) which highlights that people often exhibit abstract social reactions to threats that aim to soothe anxiety. These defensive efforts refer to conceptual or idealistic commitments, including a heightened commitment to people’s in-groups, identifications, religious convictions, values, ideologies, and worldviews, while increased derogation, hostility, and aggression toward out-groups. Based on these results, the question of the paper is whether threats may act as drivers of partisan polarisation, and, more specifically, whether the simultaneous presence of threats and elements in the political system that promote exclusive identities contributes to partisan polarisation. Based on the GPM theory, this should especially be prominent in those societies where political institutions or political leadership styles promote exclusive rather than inclusive identities, that is, in more majoritarian systems (compared to consensus ones) and systems with a populist chief executive. The paper uses mixed methods to tackle these hypotheses, standard statistical methods on the one hand and fuzzy set Qualitative Comparative Analysis on the other. Its data pool includes the ten data waves of the European Social Survey between 2002 and 2021, resulting in a pool of 204 country-year observations from 28 countries. The results are congruent with the hypotheses suggesting that defence mechanisms may play an important role in the emergence of partisan polarisation, showing that the presence of threats combined with political features that channel threat reactions toward exclusive identities (namely, more majoritarian system traits as opposed to consensus ones or populist political leadership) lead to high levels of partisan polarisation. The results have important implications for understanding and addressing partisan polarisation in European societies. They suggest that policies aiming to increase perceptions of security and diminish various forms of threats as well as institutional choices that favour consensus over majoritarian styles of decision-making may provide relief against polarisation.
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