Abstract
The populist radical right is frequently engaged in intense political and normative conflict with their political opponents. Does this have a spillover effect on citizens’ sympathies for populist radical right voters and the voters of their political antagonists, and if so, why? This is a study of citizens’ affective evaluation of radical right and social democratic voters when exposed to intense conflict between the two parties at the elite level. It zooms in on the conflict between the Norwegian Progress Party and the Labour Party that revolves around the trauma of the 22 July 2011 terror attacks, in which a former Progress Party member committed two devastating attacks against the Labour government and Labour Youth summer camp. This is studied using a survey experimental approach, relying on panel data from the Norwegian Citizen Panel. Drawing on the authoritarian dynamics’ literature, it incorporates the four-item child-rearing values index measure of authoritarian predispositions which offers a personality-based explanation for why people react differently to threat. In contrast to the authoritarian dynamics’ literature, which has found that it is either authoritarians or non-authoritarians who react, this study finds that both authoritarians and non-authoritarians simultaneously respond to high-intensity political conflict. Whereas non-authoritarians rally in support of social democratic voters, authoritarians rally in support of radical right voters. Further differentiating between those with low and high authoritarianism scores, we see that low-authoritarians also become more hostile to social democratic voters. This indicates that conflict involving populist radical right parties is a driver of personality-based, affective sorting of citizens. Since personality is relatively stable, the resulting state of polarization is also likely to be quite durable.
Highlights
We know that elite partisan polarization—where party elites from different parties grow increasingly ideologically distant from each other—impacts public opinion formation (Druckman, Peterson, & Slothuus, 2013)
When it comes to affective political conflict at the elite level, it is plausible that nonauthoritarians rally in response to one party, whilst authoritarians rally in response to another
This is the first study of how affective polarization and terror-related conflict at the elite level impacts citizens’ sympathy toward voters
Summary
We know that elite partisan polarization—where party elites from different parties grow increasingly ideologically distant from each other—impacts public opinion formation (Druckman, Peterson, & Slothuus, 2013). Beyond issues of ideological polarization, this study examines what happens when conflict at the elite level becomes so emotionally charged that the opposing sides depict each other as a dangerous threat Does this spill over onto the public’s affective evaluation of the different partisan camps and impact on their sympathies and antipathies? The remainder of the article is structured in the following manner: The subsequent section situates the study within the literature on polarization and authoritarian dynamics, followed by a section on the Norwegian case and conflict between the two political parties This is followed by an overview of the data and research design, discussion of the results, and some concluding remarks
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