Affective Polarisation and Non-Partisan Social Identities

Affective polarisation is commonly understood as positive and negative biases towards in- and out-groups, respectively, based on individuals’ categorisation (of themselves and others) into partisan groups. Nevertheless, a large part of the electorate only considers their role in politics at the time of elections, and are not particularly interested in politics or parties. As a result, their self-evaluation as members of a partisan group may be low or non-existent. Despite dwindling allegiance to political parties and increased electoral volatility worldwide, especially in multi-party settings, levels of affective polarisation are rising. This indicates a mismatch between the idea of partisanship as a social identity and the concept of affective polarisation. To address this, and drawing on the literature on social sorting, my paper suggests that social identities may produce biases towards parties, their leaders and their voters. However, it expands on the idea of social sorting by arguing that (positive) partisanship is not a necessary precondition for affective ties (particularly negative affect) to develop. This comparative research article argues that the politicisation of non-partisan social identities can lead to affective polarisation, since bringing social groups into a polarised political sphere often represents a threat to the identity group, which will tend to create positive affective ties with those parties the social group feels supported by and negative affective ties with those parties the social group feels threatened by. This paper measures affective ties to some national, ethnic, religious and value-based social identities to predict positive and negative biases towards groups of partisans and political leaders.