Eelco Harteveld
Biographic Data
| ID | 286278 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Eelco Harteveld |
| GIVEN NAMES | Eelco |
| FAMILY NAME | Harteveld |
| SIGNATURE | HARTEVELD E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Amsterdam |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4233-6592 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 32 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1165 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 32 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 19 |
Blurred boundaries: Exploring political stereotyping in Brazil, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Poland
Political stereotypes—beliefs about the attributes of politically defined groups—can deepen polarization by obscuring commonalities among citizens. Yet little is known about their nature outside the United States. Using open-ended survey responses from Brazil, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Poland (N = 5381), we analyze how citizens describe political adversaries in their own words—focusing on issues, social groups, and traits. Combining deduct…
The (alleged) consequences of affective polarization: A survey experiment in nine democracies
Affective polarization (or antipathy between supporters of opposing political camps) is considered a threat to societal cohesion and democratic stability worldwide. However, causal evidence of its impact remains scarce, especially outside the United States. Our study examines the individual-level consequences of affective polarization by manipulating it in a survey experiment in nine countries (Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, Swede…
(How) Is Meat Becoming Political? The Changing Ideological Correlates of Meat Consumption in The Netherlands
This article explores how meat consumption in the Netherlands has become aligned with ideology. The study leverages survey data from 2008 to 2022 to analyse changes in the relationship between meat consumption and political beliefs. The findings reveal that meat consumption is increasingly associated with right-wing ideology, nativism and, in particular, climate-change scepticism. This comes at the relative expense of predictors such as animal we…
Elite Cooperation and Affective Polarization: Evidence From German Coalitions
Affective polarization is a central characteristic of political competition, but high levels are seen as potentially harmful. In this article, we link the study of affective polarization to that of coalition politics, expecting that by signalling the willingness to cooperate in a coalition, political elites can reduce mutual dislike between political camps. We argue, first, that the impact of coalition formation should depend on the information c…
Understanding factual belief polarization: The role of trust, political sophistication, and affective polarization
Political opponents are often divided not only in their attitudes (i.e., ideological polarization) and their feelings toward each other (i.e., affective polarization), but also in their factual perceptions of reality (i.e., factual belief polarization). This paper describes factual belief polarization in the Netherlands around three core issues. Furthermore, this paper examines who are most susceptible to this type of polarization. Analyses on th…
Keeping Up With the Joneses? Neighbourhood Effects on the Vote
Voters are affected by cues from their immediate social environment. One of these cues consists of the political opinions available and accepted in people’s neighbourhoods, which are theoretically expected to affect vote choices through direct or indirect forms of communication. We test this assertion by employing a longitudinal design combining fine-grained geo-coded panel data with election results on a uniquely local level in the Netherlands. …
Consequences of affective polarization: Avoidance, intolerance and support for violence in the United Kingdom and Norway
Affective polarization – that is, antipathy towards political opponents – sits high on the academic and political agenda. This is because it is thought to have a multitude of damaging consequences, both for how citizens view and approach each other and for how they relate to the political system. This study investigates some of the most mentioned and worrying potential consequences of affective polarization at the individual level. Zooming in on …
How Local Context Affects Populist Radical Right Support: A Cross-National Investigation Into Mediated and Moderated Relationships
Populist radical right (PRR) parties are often more successful in some regions of their countries than in others. However, previous research shows that the relationship between context and PRR support is not straightforward. We develop and test an expanded framework linking local conditions to PRR support through two causal mechanisms. First, we argue economic and cultural contextual factors can influence citizens by fostering a sense of perceive…
Vertical vs horizontal affective polarization: Disentangling feelings towards elites and voters
Introduction: Affective polarization in multiparty systems: Conceptualization, causes and consequences
Does affective polarisation increase turnout? Evidence from Germany, The Netherlands and Spain
Polarisation is often seen as mainly negative for the functioning of democracies, but one of its saving graces could be that it raises the stakes of politics and encourages participation. This study explores the relationship between affective polarisation and turnout using three longitudinal designs. It makes use of three decades of repeated cross-sectional surveys in Germany, a two-wave panel study in Spain, and an eleven-wave panel study in the…
This is not US: Measuring polarization in multiparty systems. A quasi-replication study
In the last decade, affective polarization (AP) has become an increasingly salient topic in both public discourse and political science. Several different measurement instruments have been developed to empirically capture this phenomenon. With the rising interest that affective polarization is now also enjoying in Europe, it has become of the utmost importance to assess what these different measures capture, and to what extent their application t…
Regional resentment in the Netherlands: A rural or peripheral phenomenon
We study ‘regional resentment’, or the feeling that one’s region is not treated rightly by citizens and elites from other regions, in a European context. Is this mainly a rural or a peripheral phenomenon, or do these two contextual characteristics matter equally? We present three survey items to measure regional resentment, field it among a geocoded representative sample of 8000 Dutch citizens stratified by region and urbanity, and show that they…
Affective Polarization and the Populist Radical Right: Creating the Hating
Do populist radical right (PRR) parties fuel affective polarization? If so, how and under which circumstances? Based on a comparative cross-country analysis covering 103 elections in 28 European countries and an examination of longitudinal data from the Netherlands, we show that PRR parties occupy a particular position in the affective political landscape because they both radiate and receive high levels of dislike. In other words, supporters of …
Multiple roots of the populist radical right: Support for the Dutch PVV in cities and the countryside
Populist radical right parties are considerably more popular in some areas (neighbourhoods, municipalities, regions) than others. They thrive in some cities, in some smaller towns, and in some rural areas, but they are unsuccessful in other cities, small towns, and rural areas. We seek to explain this regional variation by modelling at the individual level how citizens respond to local conditions. We argue that patterns of populist radical right …
The conditional effects of the refugee crisis on immigration attitudes and nationalism
What was the impact of the 2014–2016 refugee crisis on immigration attitudes and national identification in Europe? Several studies show that radical right parties benefitted electorally from the refugee crisis, but research also shows that anti-immigration attitudes did not increase. We hypothesize that the refugee crisis affected right-wing citizens differently than left-wing citizens. We test this hypothesis by combining individual level surve…
A tough trade-off? The asymmetrical impact of populist radical right inclusion on satisfaction with democracy and government
Populist radical right (PRR) parties are increasingly included in coalition governments across Western Europe. How does such inclusion affect satisfaction with democracy (SWD) in these societies? While some citizens will feel democracy has grown more responsive, others will abhor the inclusion of such controversial parties. Using data from the European Social Survey (2002–2018) and panel data from the Netherlands, we investigate how nativists’ an…
Are cities ever more cosmopolitan? Studying trends in urban-rural divergence of cultural attitudes
Many scholars and pundits have argued that there is a growing urban-rural divide in political attitudes in the US and Europe. However, it is an empirical question whether and how differences in political attitudes between urban and rural areas have changed over time. In this study, we investigate the urban-rural divergence in cosmopolitan-nationalist attitudes in the Netherlands over the last four decades. We focus on attitudes towards issues of …
Ticking all the boxes? A comparative study of social sorting and affective polarization
This study explores whether, in societies around the world, affective polarization - or animosity between citizens based on their political allegiance - is stronger if political divisions align with non-political ones. Such 'social sorting' has earlier been established to foster affective polarization in the United States. In this study, I argue that the underlying mechanism travels across the globe. I then present two complementary studies which…
Fragmented foes: Affective polarization in the multiparty context of the Netherlands
Affective polarization, or antipathy between the supporters of opposing political camps, is documented to be on the rise in the United States and elsewhere. At the same time, there are limits to our understanding of this phenomenon in multiparty contexts. How do citizens draw the line between 'ingroups' and 'outgroups' in fragmented contexts with multiple parties? Answering this question has been hampered by a relative lack of data on citizens' v…
The potential of immigrant parties: Insights from the Dutch case
Social Stigma and Support for the Populist Radical Right: An Experimental Study
The ‘taboo’ or ‘stigma’ associated with many populist radical right parties (PRRPs) has been argued to be an important constraint on their electoral success. In comparison to mainstream parties, there seems to be a higher barrier keeping voters from supporting PRRPs. However, this mechanism has not been tested directly. We conducted a randomized survey‐embedded experiment manipulating the social stigma of a fictitious radical right party in Swede…
Gender Differences in Vote Choice: Social Cues and Social Harmony as Heuristics
Some parties are more popular among men, while other parties attract more female voters. This article proposes that these differences can be partially explained by two recurring gender differences in the socio-psychological literature. It argues that men’s generally lower sensitivity to social cues makes them more likely to vote for stigmatized and small parties, whereas women’s greater concern with social harmony is expected to make them less li…
The appeal of nostalgia: The Influence of Societal Pessimism on Support for Populist Radical Right Parties
In the literature, explanations of support for populist radical right (PRR) parties usually focus on voters’ socio-structural grievances, political discontent or policy positions. This article suggests an additional and possibly overarching explanation: societal pessimism. The central argument is that the nostalgic character of PRR ideology resonates with societal pessimism among its voters. Using European Social Survey data from 2012, the study …
Blaming Brussels? The Impact of (News about) the Refugee Crisis on Attitudes towards the EU and National Politics
This paper investigates how the refugee crisis has affected attitudes towards the EU, as well as attitudes towards national institutions. By combining different waves of individual survey data, official records of asylum applications and a content analysis of the media, we examine the effect of the numbers of asylum applications and the amount of media coverage thereof on citizens' attitudes towards the EU and national politics. Our findings demo…
In Europe we trust? Exploring three logics of trust in the European Union
This study develops and tests three explanations of trust in the European Union. Following the logic of rationality, trust originates from evaluations about the (actual and perceived) performances and procedures of the European Union. Trust within the logic of identity trust depends on citizens’ emotional attachments to the European Union. According to the logic of extrapolation, trust is an extension of national trust and therefore unrelated to …
The appeal of nostalgia: The Influence of Societal Pessimism on Support for Populist Radical Right Parties
In the literature, explanations of support for populist radical right (PRR) parties usually focus on voters’ socio-structural grievances, political discontent or policy positions. This article suggests an additional and possibly overarching explanation: societal pessimism. The central argument is that the nostalgic character of PRR ideology resonates with societal pessimism among its voters. Using European Social Survey data from 2012, the study …
Fragmented foes: Affective polarization in the multiparty context of the Netherlands
Affective polarization, or antipathy between the supporters of opposing political camps, is documented to be on the rise in the United States and elsewhere. At the same time, there are limits to our understanding of this phenomenon in multiparty contexts. How do citizens draw the line between 'ingroups' and 'outgroups' in fragmented contexts with multiple parties? Answering this question has been hampered by a relative lack of data on citizens' v…
Affective Polarization and the Populist Radical Right: Creating the Hating
Do populist radical right (PRR) parties fuel affective polarization? If so, how and under which circumstances? Based on a comparative cross-country analysis covering 103 elections in 28 European countries and an examination of longitudinal data from the Netherlands, we show that PRR parties occupy a particular position in the affective political landscape because they both radiate and receive high levels of dislike. In other words, supporters of …
The gender gap in populist radical-right voting: Examining the demand side in Western and Eastern Europe
In most countries, men are more likely to vote for parties of the populist radical right (PRR) than women. The authors argue here that there are two mechanisms that might potentially explain this gender gap: mediation (women's attitudes and characteristics differ from men's in ways that explain the PRR vote) and moderation (women vote for different reasons than men). They apply these two mechanisms to general theories of support for PRR parties—t…
Ticking all the boxes? A comparative study of social sorting and affective polarization
This study explores whether, in societies around the world, affective polarization - or animosity between citizens based on their political allegiance - is stronger if political divisions align with non-political ones. Such 'social sorting' has earlier been established to foster affective polarization in the United States. In this study, I argue that the underlying mechanism travels across the globe. I then present two complementary studies which…
Why Women Avoid the Radical Right: Internalized Norms and Party Reputations
Radical Right Parties (RRPs) consistently attract more male than female voters. Puzzlingly, there is no equally consistent gender difference in policy preferences on the main issues of these parties – immigration and minority integration policies. Indeed, in some countries, for instance the UK, women have as restrictive immigration policy preferences as men, but are still less likely to vote for RRPs. This article proposes a novel answer to this …
Multiple roots of the populist radical right: Support for the Dutch PVV in cities and the countryside
Populist radical right parties are considerably more popular in some areas (neighbourhoods, municipalities, regions) than others. They thrive in some cities, in some smaller towns, and in some rural areas, but they are unsuccessful in other cities, small towns, and rural areas. We seek to explain this regional variation by modelling at the individual level how citizens respond to local conditions. We argue that patterns of populist radical right …
Blaming Brussels? The Impact of (News about) the Refugee Crisis on Attitudes towards the EU and National Politics
This paper investigates how the refugee crisis has affected attitudes towards the EU, as well as attitudes towards national institutions. By combining different waves of individual survey data, official records of asylum applications and a content analysis of the media, we examine the effect of the numbers of asylum applications and the amount of media coverage thereof on citizens' attitudes towards the EU and national politics. Our findings demo…
Regional resentment in the Netherlands: A rural or peripheral phenomenon
We study ‘regional resentment’, or the feeling that one’s region is not treated rightly by citizens and elites from other regions, in a European context. Is this mainly a rural or a peripheral phenomenon, or do these two contextual characteristics matter equally? We present three survey items to measure regional resentment, field it among a geocoded representative sample of 8000 Dutch citizens stratified by region and urbanity, and show that they…
Are cities ever more cosmopolitan? Studying trends in urban-rural divergence of cultural attitudes
Many scholars and pundits have argued that there is a growing urban-rural divide in political attitudes in the US and Europe. However, it is an empirical question whether and how differences in political attitudes between urban and rural areas have changed over time. In this study, we investigate the urban-rural divergence in cosmopolitan-nationalist attitudes in the Netherlands over the last four decades. We focus on attitudes towards issues of …
Adapting to party lines: The Effect of Party Affiliation on Attitudes to Immigration
Public opinion on immigration is increasingly relevant for political behaviour. However, little is known about the way in which citizens’ political allegiances in turn shape their attitudes to immigration. Abundant existing evidence suggests that voters often take cues from the parties they support. Using panel data from the Netherlands and Sweden, this article investigates the dynamic relation between attitudes to immigration and party preferenc…
Winning the 'losers' but losing the 'winners'? The electoral consequences of the radical right moving to the economic left
The conditional effects of the refugee crisis on immigration attitudes and nationalism
What was the impact of the 2014–2016 refugee crisis on immigration attitudes and national identification in Europe? Several studies show that radical right parties benefitted electorally from the refugee crisis, but research also shows that anti-immigration attitudes did not increase. We hypothesize that the refugee crisis affected right-wing citizens differently than left-wing citizens. We test this hypothesis by combining individual level surve…
Gender Differences in Vote Choice: Social Cues and Social Harmony as Heuristics
Some parties are more popular among men, while other parties attract more female voters. This article proposes that these differences can be partially explained by two recurring gender differences in the socio-psychological literature. It argues that men’s generally lower sensitivity to social cues makes them more likely to vote for stigmatized and small parties, whereas women’s greater concern with social harmony is expected to make them less li…
A tough trade-off? The asymmetrical impact of populist radical right inclusion on satisfaction with democracy and government
Populist radical right (PRR) parties are increasingly included in coalition governments across Western Europe. How does such inclusion affect satisfaction with democracy (SWD) in these societies? While some citizens will feel democracy has grown more responsive, others will abhor the inclusion of such controversial parties. Using data from the European Social Survey (2002–2018) and panel data from the Netherlands, we investigate how nativists’ an…
Social Stigma and Support for the Populist Radical Right: An Experimental Study
The ‘taboo’ or ‘stigma’ associated with many populist radical right parties (PRRPs) has been argued to be an important constraint on their electoral success. In comparison to mainstream parties, there seems to be a higher barrier keeping voters from supporting PRRPs. However, this mechanism has not been tested directly. We conducted a randomized survey‐embedded experiment manipulating the social stigma of a fictitious radical right party in Swede…
Consequences of affective polarization: Avoidance, intolerance and support for violence in the United Kingdom and Norway
Affective polarization – that is, antipathy towards political opponents – sits high on the academic and political agenda. This is because it is thought to have a multitude of damaging consequences, both for how citizens view and approach each other and for how they relate to the political system. This study investigates some of the most mentioned and worrying potential consequences of affective polarization at the individual level. Zooming in on …
Does affective polarisation increase turnout? Evidence from Germany, The Netherlands and Spain
Polarisation is often seen as mainly negative for the functioning of democracies, but one of its saving graces could be that it raises the stakes of politics and encourages participation. This study explores the relationship between affective polarisation and turnout using three longitudinal designs. It makes use of three decades of repeated cross-sectional surveys in Germany, a two-wave panel study in Spain, and an eleven-wave panel study in the…
How Local Context Affects Populist Radical Right Support: A Cross-National Investigation Into Mediated and Moderated Relationships
Populist radical right (PRR) parties are often more successful in some regions of their countries than in others. However, previous research shows that the relationship between context and PRR support is not straightforward. We develop and test an expanded framework linking local conditions to PRR support through two causal mechanisms. First, we argue economic and cultural contextual factors can influence citizens by fostering a sense of perceive…
The potential of immigrant parties: Insights from the Dutch case
Understanding factual belief polarization: The role of trust, political sophistication, and affective polarization
Political opponents are often divided not only in their attitudes (i.e., ideological polarization) and their feelings toward each other (i.e., affective polarization), but also in their factual perceptions of reality (i.e., factual belief polarization). This paper describes factual belief polarization in the Netherlands around three core issues. Furthermore, this paper examines who are most susceptible to this type of polarization. Analyses on th…
Left-right ideology as an inferential device in multiparty systems: Can citizens overcome low information by imputing parties' policy positions
Vertical vs horizontal affective polarization: Disentangling feelings towards elites and voters
Keeping Up With the Joneses? Neighbourhood Effects on the Vote
Voters are affected by cues from their immediate social environment. One of these cues consists of the political opinions available and accepted in people’s neighbourhoods, which are theoretically expected to affect vote choices through direct or indirect forms of communication. We test this assertion by employing a longitudinal design combining fine-grained geo-coded panel data with election results on a uniquely local level in the Netherlands. …
In Europe we trust? Exploring three logics of trust in the European Union
This study develops and tests three explanations of trust in the European Union. Following the logic of rationality, trust originates from evaluations about the (actual and perceived) performances and procedures of the European Union. Trust within the logic of identity trust depends on citizens’ emotional attachments to the European Union. According to the logic of extrapolation, trust is an extension of national trust and therefore unrelated to …
The gender gap in populist radical-right voting: Examining the demand side in Western and Eastern Europe
In most countries, men are more likely to vote for parties of the populist radical right (PRR) than women. The authors argue here that there are two mechanisms that might potentially explain this gender gap: mediation (women's attitudes and characteristics differ from men's in ways that explain the PRR vote) and moderation (women vote for different reasons than men). They apply these two mechanisms to general theories of support for PRR parties—t…
Group Gender Composition and Tolerance of Immigrants' Rights
Research has shown that women on average express more positive attitudes towards out-groups than men. We hypothesize that, because of differences in the social climate that this gender gap produces, people who spend more time in female-dominated groups are likely to develop more positive attitudes towards out-groups than people who spend more time in groups that are dominated by men. We corroborate our argument with evidence from two unique Swedi…
Winning the 'losers' but losing the 'winners'? The electoral consequences of the radical right moving to the economic left
Left-right ideology as an inferential device in multiparty systems: Can citizens overcome low information by imputing parties' policy positions
Adapting to party lines: The Effect of Party Affiliation on Attitudes to Immigration
Public opinion on immigration is increasingly relevant for political behaviour. However, little is known about the way in which citizens’ political allegiances in turn shape their attitudes to immigration. Abundant existing evidence suggests that voters often take cues from the parties they support. Using panel data from the Netherlands and Sweden, this article investigates the dynamic relation between attitudes to immigration and party preferenc…
The appeal of nostalgia: The Influence of Societal Pessimism on Support for Populist Radical Right Parties
In the literature, explanations of support for populist radical right (PRR) parties usually focus on voters’ socio-structural grievances, political discontent or policy positions. This article suggests an additional and possibly overarching explanation: societal pessimism. The central argument is that the nostalgic character of PRR ideology resonates with societal pessimism among its voters. Using European Social Survey data from 2012, the study …
Blaming Brussels? The Impact of (News about) the Refugee Crisis on Attitudes towards the EU and National Politics
This paper investigates how the refugee crisis has affected attitudes towards the EU, as well as attitudes towards national institutions. By combining different waves of individual survey data, official records of asylum applications and a content analysis of the media, we examine the effect of the numbers of asylum applications and the amount of media coverage thereof on citizens' attitudes towards the EU and national politics. Our findings demo…
Why Women Avoid the Radical Right: Internalized Norms and Party Reputations
Radical Right Parties (RRPs) consistently attract more male than female voters. Puzzlingly, there is no equally consistent gender difference in policy preferences on the main issues of these parties – immigration and minority integration policies. Indeed, in some countries, for instance the UK, women have as restrictive immigration policy preferences as men, but are still less likely to vote for RRPs. This article proposes a novel answer to this …
Social Stigma and Support for the Populist Radical Right: An Experimental Study
The ‘taboo’ or ‘stigma’ associated with many populist radical right parties (PRRPs) has been argued to be an important constraint on their electoral success. In comparison to mainstream parties, there seems to be a higher barrier keeping voters from supporting PRRPs. However, this mechanism has not been tested directly. We conducted a randomized survey‐embedded experiment manipulating the social stigma of a fictitious radical right party in Swede…
Gender Differences in Vote Choice: Social Cues and Social Harmony as Heuristics
Some parties are more popular among men, while other parties attract more female voters. This article proposes that these differences can be partially explained by two recurring gender differences in the socio-psychological literature. It argues that men’s generally lower sensitivity to social cues makes them more likely to vote for stigmatized and small parties, whereas women’s greater concern with social harmony is expected to make them less li…
The potential of immigrant parties: Insights from the Dutch case
The conditional effects of the refugee crisis on immigration attitudes and nationalism
What was the impact of the 2014–2016 refugee crisis on immigration attitudes and national identification in Europe? Several studies show that radical right parties benefitted electorally from the refugee crisis, but research also shows that anti-immigration attitudes did not increase. We hypothesize that the refugee crisis affected right-wing citizens differently than left-wing citizens. We test this hypothesis by combining individual level surve…
A tough trade-off? The asymmetrical impact of populist radical right inclusion on satisfaction with democracy and government
Populist radical right (PRR) parties are increasingly included in coalition governments across Western Europe. How does such inclusion affect satisfaction with democracy (SWD) in these societies? While some citizens will feel democracy has grown more responsive, others will abhor the inclusion of such controversial parties. Using data from the European Social Survey (2002–2018) and panel data from the Netherlands, we investigate how nativists’ an…
Are cities ever more cosmopolitan? Studying trends in urban-rural divergence of cultural attitudes
Many scholars and pundits have argued that there is a growing urban-rural divide in political attitudes in the US and Europe. However, it is an empirical question whether and how differences in political attitudes between urban and rural areas have changed over time. In this study, we investigate the urban-rural divergence in cosmopolitan-nationalist attitudes in the Netherlands over the last four decades. We focus on attitudes towards issues of …
Ticking all the boxes? A comparative study of social sorting and affective polarization
This study explores whether, in societies around the world, affective polarization - or animosity between citizens based on their political allegiance - is stronger if political divisions align with non-political ones. Such 'social sorting' has earlier been established to foster affective polarization in the United States. In this study, I argue that the underlying mechanism travels across the globe. I then present two complementary studies which…
Fragmented foes: Affective polarization in the multiparty context of the Netherlands
Affective polarization, or antipathy between the supporters of opposing political camps, is documented to be on the rise in the United States and elsewhere. At the same time, there are limits to our understanding of this phenomenon in multiparty contexts. How do citizens draw the line between 'ingroups' and 'outgroups' in fragmented contexts with multiple parties? Answering this question has been hampered by a relative lack of data on citizens' v…
Regional resentment in the Netherlands: A rural or peripheral phenomenon
We study ‘regional resentment’, or the feeling that one’s region is not treated rightly by citizens and elites from other regions, in a European context. Is this mainly a rural or a peripheral phenomenon, or do these two contextual characteristics matter equally? We present three survey items to measure regional resentment, field it among a geocoded representative sample of 8000 Dutch citizens stratified by region and urbanity, and show that they…
Affective Polarization and the Populist Radical Right: Creating the Hating
Do populist radical right (PRR) parties fuel affective polarization? If so, how and under which circumstances? Based on a comparative cross-country analysis covering 103 elections in 28 European countries and an examination of longitudinal data from the Netherlands, we show that PRR parties occupy a particular position in the affective political landscape because they both radiate and receive high levels of dislike. In other words, supporters of …
Multiple roots of the populist radical right: Support for the Dutch PVV in cities and the countryside
Populist radical right parties are considerably more popular in some areas (neighbourhoods, municipalities, regions) than others. They thrive in some cities, in some smaller towns, and in some rural areas, but they are unsuccessful in other cities, small towns, and rural areas. We seek to explain this regional variation by modelling at the individual level how citizens respond to local conditions. We argue that patterns of populist radical right …
Introduction: Affective polarization in multiparty systems: Conceptualization, causes and consequences
Does affective polarisation increase turnout? Evidence from Germany, The Netherlands and Spain
Polarisation is often seen as mainly negative for the functioning of democracies, but one of its saving graces could be that it raises the stakes of politics and encourages participation. This study explores the relationship between affective polarisation and turnout using three longitudinal designs. It makes use of three decades of repeated cross-sectional surveys in Germany, a two-wave panel study in Spain, and an eleven-wave panel study in the…
This is not US: Measuring polarization in multiparty systems. A quasi-replication study
In the last decade, affective polarization (AP) has become an increasingly salient topic in both public discourse and political science. Several different measurement instruments have been developed to empirically capture this phenomenon. With the rising interest that affective polarization is now also enjoying in Europe, it has become of the utmost importance to assess what these different measures capture, and to what extent their application t…
Understanding factual belief polarization: The role of trust, political sophistication, and affective polarization
Political opponents are often divided not only in their attitudes (i.e., ideological polarization) and their feelings toward each other (i.e., affective polarization), but also in their factual perceptions of reality (i.e., factual belief polarization). This paper describes factual belief polarization in the Netherlands around three core issues. Furthermore, this paper examines who are most susceptible to this type of polarization. Analyses on th…
Keeping Up With the Joneses? Neighbourhood Effects on the Vote
Voters are affected by cues from their immediate social environment. One of these cues consists of the political opinions available and accepted in people’s neighbourhoods, which are theoretically expected to affect vote choices through direct or indirect forms of communication. We test this assertion by employing a longitudinal design combining fine-grained geo-coded panel data with election results on a uniquely local level in the Netherlands. …
Political science (30 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (24 works) · Law (24 works) · Politics (23 works) · Law (20 works) · Populism, Right-Wing Movements (20 works) · Psychology (20 works) · Social Psychology (19 works) · Sociology (18 works) · Social Psychology (16 works)