Affective Polarization Across Space: Explaining Place-Based Resentment in Europe

Affective polarization has received increasing attention in recent years. Rising political polarization and negative opinions about partisan out-groups challenge the resilience of democracies societies (Iyengar et al. 2019; Wagner 2020). While affective political polarization (APP) is frequently studied across partisan groups (Wagner 2020), research also shows that APP exists beyond partisan divides. Hobolt, Leeper, and Tilley (2020), for instance, show how opinion-based polarization on the Leave-Remain dimension emerged during the Brexit vote in the UK, exceeding polarization across partisanship. This project further investigates sources of APP beyond partisanship, focusing on the role of place-based resentment to understand the geography in political polarization. Studies of political behavior diagnose a rising geographic polarization in political attitudes and voting behavior. Political opinions such as cosmopolitanism, globalization attitudes or immigration preferences are strongly structured by local context (Carreras, Irepoglu Carreras, and Bowler 2019; Colantone and Stanig 2018; Fitzgerald 2018). Our understanding of this place-based polarization, however, is still limited. This paper argues that studying affective polarization across space helps us to uncover some of the causes and consequences of place-based political polarization. The nature and extent of disaffect between different geographical areas and its combination with local context, such as economic decline, immigration, or redistribution might be a strong driver of the spatial political polarization we observe today. Combining recently developed measures of place-based resentment from the US context (Munis 2020) with existing metrics of APP (e.g., Wagner 2020), we are going to present a pre-analysis plan for an original survey planned to be fielded the second half of 2021. The pre-analysis plan aims at several contributions. First, we are planning to assess the validity of place-based resentment measures for the European context. Second, we are going to lay out some original ideas on how to tap into APP across space focusing on peripheral and center regions in Europe. Third, we are planning to assess the relationship between place-based resentment metrics and geographic APP measures. Finally, the pre-analysis plan will propose ideas for a set of experimental designs to assess how local context factors, such as immigration, economic decline, and redistribution, could causally affect spatial APP. References Carreras M, Irepoglu Carreras Y and Bowler S (2019) Long-Term Economic Distress, Cultural Backlash, and Support for Brexit. Comparative Political Studies 52, 1396–1424. Colantone I and Stanig P (2018) Import Competition and Voting Behavior. American Journal of Political Science 00, 1–18. Fitzgerald J (2018) Close to Home: Local Ties and Voting Radical Right in Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hobolt SB, Leeper TJ and Tilley J (2020) Divided by the Vote: Affective Polarization in the Wake of the Brexit Referendum. British Journal of Political Science. Iyengar S et al. (2019) The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization in the United States. Annual Review of Political Science 22, 129–146. Munis BK (2020) Us Over Here Versus Them Over There … Literally : Measuring Place Resentment in American Politics. Political Behavior. Wagner M (2020) Affective Polarization in Multiparty Systems. Electoral Studies 102199.