2026/01/01 by Jochem Vanagt · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Electoral Systems and Political Participation #Populism, Right-Wing Movements #Social and Intergroup Psychology
paper · doi:10.63028/10067/2200320151162165141
openalex publication_date 2026/01/01 · openalex created_date 2026/01/27 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Affective polarization, understood as the mutual dislike between opposing political groups, is widely viewed as a threat to democratic societies. This dissertation consists of six distinct articles which examine how this U.S.-born concept can be applied to, and operates within, Europe’s multiparty context. Drawing on observational, longitudinal, and experimental data from 423,524 respondents across twenty democracies, it advances the argument that affective polarization and its consequences are heavily dependent on how political elites and citizens interact with three defining features of multiparty systems: coalition dynamics, the radical right, and ideological camps. The first part, On Shifting Lines, focuses on the role of political elites and studies how coalition dynamics and elite signaling shape partisan affect. Articles 1-3 find that 1) elite cooperation reduces intergroup hostility only when such cooperation is perceived as successful, 2) center-right accommodation of the radical right fails to reduce affective divisions, instead simply shifting them toward the political center, and 3) when political elites do (re-)ostracize a radical party, animosity toward this party increases. The second part, On Camps in Motion, centers on citizens themselves, highlighting the overlooked heterogeneity in political attitudes among the affectively polarized in European multiparty systems. Articles 4-6 show that 1) most citizens in Europe do not identify with one single party, but feel closer to broader ideological camps while being less affectively polarized, 2) radical-right supporters are not one homogeneous block, whereby only those who strongly dislike both the center left and center right are substantially less supportive of democracy, and 3) affective polarization in Europe often coexists with democratic support, which contradicts previous notions that affective polarization is inherently harmful to democracy. The dissertation concludes that affective polarization in Europe cannot be understood by simply looking at the U.S., and urges away from U.S.-centric concerns about affective polarization. Coalition dynamics, the contested status of the radical right, and ideological camps jointly shape how affective boundaries are drawn and what its consequences are for democracy more broadly. In such context, citizen attitudes are highly heterogeneous and malleable, while elites can rapidly redraw affective fault lines through their performance, signaling, and gatekeeping vis-à-vis radical actors. It also cautions against treating affective polarization as uniformly harmful, highlighting its close ties to political engagement. These findings suggest that Europe’s multiparty systems contain particular levers that can channel animosity toward defending democratic norms rather than eroding them. Yet, this resilience is contingent: if elites fail to cooperate or abdicate their gatekeeping role, allowing politics to harden into a binary clash, even multiparty systems risk drifting toward a democracy in decline, as observed in the United States today or in ancient Athens over 2,400 years ago.