Affective Polarization

Competing political ideals are considered a necessary requirement for a healthy democracy. However, scholarship has uncovered a more worrisome form of political polarization, not based on ideology but rather rooted in distrust, dislike, and contempt across party lines. This phenomenon is known as “affective polarization.” Different conceptualizations have been brought forward, including adaptations to contexts different from the United States, where the notion originated. As research has intensified and gone comparative, important conceptual developments have taken place. Similarly, manifold affective polarization’s measurement approaches have been developed, with different outcomes and developments across time and contexts. When it comes to the underpinnings of affective polarization, research has focused in turn on individual-level predictors, as well as the changing context in which politics evolves, spanning from technological, commercial, and political developments in the media landscape to system-level predictors such as economic inequality, government output, political system characteristics, and societal heterogeneity. The consequences of affective polarization are dealt with by a growing body of research, which discusses the social effects of heightened levels of affective polarizationas well as its foremost electoral consequences (i.e., electoral participation, loyal voting, negative voting, and party choice). This entry concludes with a summary of the main points raised in existing research and hints at further research efforts in the field, with a particular focus on the emerging literature on potential interventions tailored at reducing affective polarization in democracies worldwide.