Conjoint Analysis of Drivers of Affective Polarization in Lithuania: Party Support or Issue Positions?

Affective polarization is usually understood as hostility between two opposing partisan camps. However, it remains unclear whether partisanship functions merely as a cognitive cue indicating that someone belongs to the opposing camp, or whether it is itself the cause of polarization. Members of opposing partisan camps are often surrounded by stereotypes, making it difficult to determine what exactly drives intergroup hostility—partisanship per se or the value-based attitudes associated with it. This raises the question of what happens when partisanship does not align with other salient value differences. Conventional survey methods are ill-suited to address this issue, as they cannot disentangle characteristics or beliefs attributed to an opposing party from partisanship itself. To overcome this limitation, this study employs a conjoint experiment in which respondents were asked to evaluate pairs of individuals who differed in party affiliation and in several of the most polarizing issues in the respondent’s country (Lithuania), such as support for Ukraine, COVID-19 vaccination, and same-sex marriage. The main objective of the study is to test whether partisanship remains the primary driver of animosity even when controlling for all value-relevant differences. The study also seeks to test a novel way of measuring affective polarization. In addition to the traditional like–dislike scale, the experiment included a measure of potential hostility between individuals. After being shown two hypothetical profiles, respondents were asked: “With which of these people would you be more likely to have a hostile relationship? Person A / Person B / It’s hard to tell.” To assess how well this hostility-based measure compares to the like–dislike scale in capturing polarization, we conduct several analyses comparing the two approaches.