College 7: Polarisation and discontent
Levels
- Party-level polarisation
- Mass-level polarisation
Types:
1. Ideological
a. policy level
b. op basis van ideologie
2. Affective
a. emotional
b. hij-zij denken
3. Reality/ontological
Electoral systems
1. Proportional representation
a. Proportional votes to seats
i. More ideological polarisation at party-level compared to majoritarian
2. Majoritarian
a. UK & France
b. District systems → winner gets it all
c. Small parties don’t really matter
i. More mass-level polarisation compared to PR
3. Mixed
Party-level polarisation can be measured by the spread of parties on the left/right scale,
weighted by the size of the parties (vote share)
Voters are rational individuals with set preferences about political outcomes
● Voters are policy maximisers, who want maximum policy match with a political party
● Parties are vote maximisers, who seek to a capture as much vote support as
possible
Generally, PR systems have higher levels of polarisation than majoritarian systems.
Yet party polarisation does not have to translate polarisation at the mass level.
In fact: majoritarian systems exhibit higher polarisation at the mass level.
At the same time, PR systems are prone to exogenous shocks.
Politics are structured around core debates about cleavages
Ideological polarisation
Rational, policy-based disagreement
Still closely tied to the political: agreement is about politics itself, not about individual identity
Usually, beneficial to have in democracies, as it presupposes political engagement
Affective polarisation
Dislike of outgroup partisans
Dislike extends beyond politics: political and personal identities are conflated
Tribalism: us/them-rhetoric
Strong presence of cultural issues
,Why does tribalism happen?
- Ingrained in the social-psychological makeup of individuals is the innate sense of
recognition who belongs to the ingroup and who doesn’t
Two mutually reinforcing mechanisms
1. Ingroup favoritism
2. Outgroup derogation
We always first create a sense of the ingroup before the outgroup
Political identities can provide strong in- and outgroups
1. Political issues are inherently contestable
2. Political contestation determines the allocation of societal goods
3. who votes similar to me → who is similar to me
4. What issues define the ingroup
Cues give us a preset image of what type a person is → stereotyping
- Visual cues are strong markers of how we perceive others’ political identities
What might be the result of heightened affective polarisation?
A possible outcome is an increase in threat perception of out-partisans or other outgroups?
● Realistic threat: threats to your personal circumstance
○ E.g. loss of housing etc.
● Symbolic threat: threats to your way of life
May lead to adverse consequences for democratic health, as distrust (passive) is turned into
fear (active)
→ fear may legitimise repression of specific groups
Ontological/Reality polarisation
We can move beyond ‘dislike’ to ‘disbelief’ between partisans
Rejection of factuality on the basis of political viewpoints
- Often related to science-based political issues (e.g. climate change, CoViD-19)
- But can also be related to dis- and misinformation (e.g. Russia-Ukraine war)
- Again, influence of tribalism: shared belief systems within ingroups
Polarisation: positive or pernicious
● Party-level vs. mass-level
○ Electoral context matters
○ Rational and sociological models
● Ideological vs. affective vs. ontological
○ Policy vs. identity vs. reality
○ Tribalism
○ Threat perception and repression
, College 8: Populism and its challenges to democracy
Political parties
The central agents of mediation between the social sphere
Functions:
● Recruitment of political staff
● Responsiveness through interest articulation, representation & aggregation
● Government formation & opposition work
● Policy formation
● Mobilisation and integration of voters and members
Representation and structuring of political conflict
Party systems
= the system of interactions resulting from inter-party competition
● First, a party system must consist of more than a single party (otherwise there is no
inter-party competition)
● Second, a party system clearly involves something more than the sum of its
component parts (i.e. political parties). This way it incorporates some element of
understanding of the mode of interaction between the latter
● Third, the notion of system implies some degree of regularity, suggesting some
continuity of inter-party interactions between elections
Explaining variance in party systems
Duverger’s theory
● Duverger’s theory states that the size of a country’s party system will depend on the
complex interplay between social and institutional factors
● Social divisions create the ‘demand’ for political parties, and electoral institutions then
determine the extent to which this demand is translated into parties that win votes
(electoral parties) and parties that win seats (legislative parties)
Effects of electoral laws
● Mechanical effects of electoral laws: the way in which votes are translated into seats.
When electoral systems are disproportional, the mechanical effect punishes small
parties and rewards large parties
● Strategic effects: the ways in which votes are translated into seats influences the
‘strategic’ behaviour of voters and political elites
Social Forces: the concept of cleavage
A cleavage is a historically determined social or cultural line which divides citizens within a
society into groups with differing political interests, potentially resulting in political conflict
among these groups.
→ Social or cultural cleavages become political cleavages only once they get politicised as
such
Reinforcing cleavages
● If cleavages overlap with each other, this can heighten the conflict and be more
divisive.
● The disagreements produced by one division (e.g. class), will reinforce the divisions
produced by another (e.g. race)
● Finding agreement and compromise across groups in this situation can be that much
more difficult
Levels
- Party-level polarisation
- Mass-level polarisation
Types:
1. Ideological
a. policy level
b. op basis van ideologie
2. Affective
a. emotional
b. hij-zij denken
3. Reality/ontological
Electoral systems
1. Proportional representation
a. Proportional votes to seats
i. More ideological polarisation at party-level compared to majoritarian
2. Majoritarian
a. UK & France
b. District systems → winner gets it all
c. Small parties don’t really matter
i. More mass-level polarisation compared to PR
3. Mixed
Party-level polarisation can be measured by the spread of parties on the left/right scale,
weighted by the size of the parties (vote share)
Voters are rational individuals with set preferences about political outcomes
● Voters are policy maximisers, who want maximum policy match with a political party
● Parties are vote maximisers, who seek to a capture as much vote support as
possible
Generally, PR systems have higher levels of polarisation than majoritarian systems.
Yet party polarisation does not have to translate polarisation at the mass level.
In fact: majoritarian systems exhibit higher polarisation at the mass level.
At the same time, PR systems are prone to exogenous shocks.
Politics are structured around core debates about cleavages
Ideological polarisation
Rational, policy-based disagreement
Still closely tied to the political: agreement is about politics itself, not about individual identity
Usually, beneficial to have in democracies, as it presupposes political engagement
Affective polarisation
Dislike of outgroup partisans
Dislike extends beyond politics: political and personal identities are conflated
Tribalism: us/them-rhetoric
Strong presence of cultural issues
,Why does tribalism happen?
- Ingrained in the social-psychological makeup of individuals is the innate sense of
recognition who belongs to the ingroup and who doesn’t
Two mutually reinforcing mechanisms
1. Ingroup favoritism
2. Outgroup derogation
We always first create a sense of the ingroup before the outgroup
Political identities can provide strong in- and outgroups
1. Political issues are inherently contestable
2. Political contestation determines the allocation of societal goods
3. who votes similar to me → who is similar to me
4. What issues define the ingroup
Cues give us a preset image of what type a person is → stereotyping
- Visual cues are strong markers of how we perceive others’ political identities
What might be the result of heightened affective polarisation?
A possible outcome is an increase in threat perception of out-partisans or other outgroups?
● Realistic threat: threats to your personal circumstance
○ E.g. loss of housing etc.
● Symbolic threat: threats to your way of life
May lead to adverse consequences for democratic health, as distrust (passive) is turned into
fear (active)
→ fear may legitimise repression of specific groups
Ontological/Reality polarisation
We can move beyond ‘dislike’ to ‘disbelief’ between partisans
Rejection of factuality on the basis of political viewpoints
- Often related to science-based political issues (e.g. climate change, CoViD-19)
- But can also be related to dis- and misinformation (e.g. Russia-Ukraine war)
- Again, influence of tribalism: shared belief systems within ingroups
Polarisation: positive or pernicious
● Party-level vs. mass-level
○ Electoral context matters
○ Rational and sociological models
● Ideological vs. affective vs. ontological
○ Policy vs. identity vs. reality
○ Tribalism
○ Threat perception and repression
, College 8: Populism and its challenges to democracy
Political parties
The central agents of mediation between the social sphere
Functions:
● Recruitment of political staff
● Responsiveness through interest articulation, representation & aggregation
● Government formation & opposition work
● Policy formation
● Mobilisation and integration of voters and members
Representation and structuring of political conflict
Party systems
= the system of interactions resulting from inter-party competition
● First, a party system must consist of more than a single party (otherwise there is no
inter-party competition)
● Second, a party system clearly involves something more than the sum of its
component parts (i.e. political parties). This way it incorporates some element of
understanding of the mode of interaction between the latter
● Third, the notion of system implies some degree of regularity, suggesting some
continuity of inter-party interactions between elections
Explaining variance in party systems
Duverger’s theory
● Duverger’s theory states that the size of a country’s party system will depend on the
complex interplay between social and institutional factors
● Social divisions create the ‘demand’ for political parties, and electoral institutions then
determine the extent to which this demand is translated into parties that win votes
(electoral parties) and parties that win seats (legislative parties)
Effects of electoral laws
● Mechanical effects of electoral laws: the way in which votes are translated into seats.
When electoral systems are disproportional, the mechanical effect punishes small
parties and rewards large parties
● Strategic effects: the ways in which votes are translated into seats influences the
‘strategic’ behaviour of voters and political elites
Social Forces: the concept of cleavage
A cleavage is a historically determined social or cultural line which divides citizens within a
society into groups with differing political interests, potentially resulting in political conflict
among these groups.
→ Social or cultural cleavages become political cleavages only once they get politicised as
such
Reinforcing cleavages
● If cleavages overlap with each other, this can heighten the conflict and be more
divisive.
● The disagreements produced by one division (e.g. class), will reinforce the divisions
produced by another (e.g. race)
● Finding agreement and compromise across groups in this situation can be that much
more difficult
