Affective polarisation and populism

Populism is one of the more pervasive and persistent challenges to contemporary democracies. Recent history teaches us that populism can threaten (liberal) democracy and have perilous effects on democratic development, even in fully democratised countries. From extensive research on the polity-level, we know that the simplification, or even dichotomisation, of politics can bolster populism. It is, therefore, important to examine the extent to which this is also true on the individual level? In this regard, we argue that two important dynamics have been somewhat neglected when examining what contributes to populist support, namely partisanship and (affective) polarisation. Like populism, both of these dynamics view politics in a rather dichotomous and simplistic manner. This study posits that such an interpretation of political life is beneficial for populists and the message they diffuse to the public. We rely on an original 2019 survey fielded in 10 West European countries to examine how dichotomised views of politics feed into populist support. We find that populist attitudes, positive partisanship and affective polarisation stimulate populist support, whereas negative partisanship curtails it. At the same time, the relationship between affective polarisation and populist support is also more conditional on other party characteristics, like ideology, but not others, like governmental status.