From Partisan Hearts to Cynical Minds: Reassessing Affective Polarization in the Context of Political Involvement and Anti-Elitism

Affective polarization, characterized by intense divisions between supporters of different political parties, is widely considered a major threat to democracies around the world. However, several recent studies have failed to find a causal link between affective polarization and a weakening of democratic norms and attitudes (Broockman et al., 2023; Voelkel et al., 2023; Berntzen et al., 2024). Building on Broockman et al. (2023), we posit that affective polarization may not be a direct cause of undemocratic sentiments, but rather a symptom of other factors which also influence democratic support. We thus contend that the association between affective polarization and democratic support often found in cross-sectional surveys is mostly spurious in nature. Moreover, different drivers of affective polarization may have differing, counteracting effects on democratic support, causing previous work on the consequences of affective polarization to yield mixed results. In the present paper, we aim to shed light on two important potential confounders of the relationship between affective polarization and democratic support. Firstly, we argue that affective polarization is a manifestation of (deep) political involvement (Krupnikov and Ryan, 2022), which, simultaneously, bolsters democratic support. When affective polarization merely reflects strong political involvement, a polarized citizenry should not be a cause for concern for democratic commitment; quite the contrary. Secondly, affective polarization may also be the result of anti-elitism, an attitude that is likely to cause lower democratic support. Previous research that found affective polarization to be potentially harmful to democracy, might have largely been driven by citizens who, in fact, hold anti-elitist attitudes. To test our theory, we triangulate three novel cross-sectional studies conducted in 18 Western democracies (N = 32,000) with a series of factorial vignette experiments conducted in France, Germany, Italy, and the United States (N = 8,000) in which we alleviate anti-elitism and activate political involvement to study their distinct effects on affective polarization and democratic support. As the erosion of democratic support threatens the functioning of Western societies, a better understanding of its causes is sorely needed. This study therefore sets out to further illuminate whether affective polarization has a detrimental impact on the fabric of democracy. By disentangling the distinct ways in which political involvement and anti-elitism relate to both affective polarization and democratic support, we hope to shed further light on existing mixed findings and provide a more nuanced account of the normative (un)desirability of affective polarization.