How Do Populist Attitudes Relate to Affective Polarization? Disentangling the Relationship Between Populist Dimensions and Polarization Components in Spain

How do populist attitudes shape affective polarization at the individual level? Populism has been extensively studied in the academic literature over the last decades, whereas research on affective polarization has boomed in recent years. Although both attitudes share some key features, such as the division between ‘Us’ – the good people – and ‘Them’ – the corrupt elite – empirical studies examining their association remain relatively scarce. Moreover, the few existing contributions have failed to disentangle different populist dimensions and components of affective polarization. This article investigates the impact of populist attitudes – distinguishing between people-centrism, anti-elitism and Manichaeism – on affective polarization, which consists of two components: in-party sympathy and out-party animosity. We advance three main expectations. First, people-centrism is consistently associated with both in-party sympathy and out-party animosity. Second, anti-elitism is related to higher levels of affective polarization, primarily among supporters of challenger parties, through an increase in the out-party animosity component. By contrast, anti-elitism is not expected to substantially increase affective polarization among sympathizers of mainstream parties, especially when these parties are in government. Finally, Manichaeism is expected to increase affective polarization as well, particularly among supporters of populist parties and especially with respect to the out-party animosity component. We test these expectations using two different studies conducted in Spain: a rich cross-sectional survey on populist attitudes fielded in 2018, and the POLAT panel survey, which includes 11 annual waves collected between 2014 and 2024. Spain constitutes an especially interesting case study due to the emergence of several significant challenger parties over the last decade, including a populist radical left party (Podemos) and a populist radical right party (Vox). Moreover, the partisan composition of the Spanish government changed during the period under study. Our preliminary findings reveal that populist attitudes are positively associated with affective polarization both between and within individuals. However, in line with our expectations, such association depends on the specific populist dimensions and polarization components under consideration, as well as on individuals’ in-party family (i.e., mainstream vs. challenger; non-populist vs. populist) and government status (i.e., in government vs. in opposition) . This study enhances our understanding of how two phenomena that are highly prevalent in contemporary democracies relate to one another. Given that both are typically associated with political engagement as well as other significant attitudinal and behavioral consequences – some of them potentially harmful, such as political intolerance – our findings carry important theoretical and normative implications for the functioning of democratic systems.