Sentimientos hacia la política en el País Vasco (1995-2019). Variables explicativas, el efecto de la polarización afectiva y la importancia del contexto

Abstract

This article analyzes, with survey data, which are the possible factors, variables and contexts that explain the different feelings about politics that can be found in Basque Country during the last 25 years (1995-2019). To this aim, a theoretical and practical reflection is offered on the different research strategies used to study the affective aspects in the political world, by comparing studies focused on the analysis of emotions through constructs such as affective polarization with other studies that analyze emotions based on specific questions. First of all, this article examines political emotions such as affective polarization in the Basque Country and, subsequently, it studies the extent to which affective polarization, together with other explanatory variables, affects different sentiments towards politics. Three logistic regression models are used to analyze three types of sentiments; the results show how the effect of affective polarization tends to explain better positive sentiments than negative ones in the Basque Country. Moreover, it is found that sentiments have evolved from mainly positive position of commitment, interest and enthusiasm to the current one dominated by negative feelings of distrust and irritation.