From Values to Feelings: How Value-Based Polarization Drives Affective Polarization in Europe

The proposed paper is part of a multi-year research project focusing on value-based polarization and its socio-political consequences. The project introduces the concept of value-based polarization to address the lack of systematic research on societal divisions in basic human values. Linking political polarization theory and Schwartz’s value framework, it develops a conceptual and analytical framework to examine how value preferences structure social divisions across Europe. Using European Social Survey data (2000–2024), it constructs an unbalanced panel of ca. 250 data points representing value-based polarization indices for 32 European countries across 11 survey rounds. Three analytical dimensions are operationalized—value alignment, dispersion, and extremity—and analyzed comparatively to reveal temporal and cross-national patterns. Building on this conceptual-analytical framework and database, the proposed paper investigates the relationship between value-based polarization and affective polarization. Specifically, we test theoretical expectations/hypotheses derived from prior explorative work and research on the ideological roots of affective polarization regarding the link between different aspects of value-based polarization and affective polarization using panel analysis techniques. We also investigate whether and how these effects are moderated by contextual factors, such as polities’ formal institutional characteristics. The findings are expected to advance research on the drivers of affective polarization, and in a broader sense, contribute to the understanding of how complex value patterns strengthen or undermine social cohesion in European societies.