Ideological extremism, perceived party system polarization, and support for democracy

Does ideological polarization undermine or strengthen people’s principled support for democracy? In this study, we suggest that different manifestations of ideological polarization have different implications in this respect. Using data from 11 surveys conducted with representative samples of the ad...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Torcal, Mariano, Magalhães, Pedro C.
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2022
País:España
Institución:Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Repositorio:Repositorio Digital de la UPF
OAI Identifier:oai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/56841
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10230/56841
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1755773922000066
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:ideological polarization
ideological extremism
democratic support
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spelling Ideological extremism, perceived party system polarization, and support for democracyTorcal, MarianoMagalhães, Pedro C.ideological polarizationideological extremismdemocratic supportDoes ideological polarization undermine or strengthen people’s principled support for democracy? In this study, we suggest that different manifestations of ideological polarization have different implications in this respect. Using data from 11 surveys conducted with representative samples of the adult populations of a group of liberal democratic countries, part of the Comparative National Elections Project, we look at how people’s level of ideological extremism and their perceptions of ideological polarization in their countries’ party systems are related with their support for democracy. We show that citizens who hold more extreme ideological positions are indeed less supportive of democracy and that such a negative relationship is strengthened as citizens’ extremism increases. However, we also show that the citizens who display higher levels of principled support for democracy are those who perceive parties to be neither too distant nor too close to each other in ideological terms. In other words, while a very polarized partisan supply seems to undermine popular commitment with democracy, very low polarization may have similar consequences.Cambridge University Press202320232022info:eu-repo/semantics/articleinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersionapplication/pdfapplication/pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/10230/56841http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1755773922000066reponame:Repositorio Digital de la UPFinstname:Universitat Pompeu FabraInglésEuropean Political Science Review. 2022;14(2):188-205.© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of European Consortium for Political Research. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessoai:repositori.upf.edu:10230/568412026-06-12T07:21:37Z
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv Ideological extremism, perceived party system polarization, and support for democracy
title Ideological extremism, perceived party system polarization, and support for democracy
spellingShingle Ideological extremism, perceived party system polarization, and support for democracy
Torcal, Mariano
ideological polarization
ideological extremism
democratic support
title_short Ideological extremism, perceived party system polarization, and support for democracy
title_full Ideological extremism, perceived party system polarization, and support for democracy
title_fullStr Ideological extremism, perceived party system polarization, and support for democracy
title_full_unstemmed Ideological extremism, perceived party system polarization, and support for democracy
title_sort Ideological extremism, perceived party system polarization, and support for democracy
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Torcal, Mariano
Magalhães, Pedro C.
author Torcal, Mariano
author_facet Torcal, Mariano
Magalhães, Pedro C.
author_role author
author2 Magalhães, Pedro C.
author2_role author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv ideological polarization
ideological extremism
democratic support
topic ideological polarization
ideological extremism
democratic support
description Does ideological polarization undermine or strengthen people’s principled support for democracy? In this study, we suggest that different manifestations of ideological polarization have different implications in this respect. Using data from 11 surveys conducted with representative samples of the adult populations of a group of liberal democratic countries, part of the Comparative National Elections Project, we look at how people’s level of ideological extremism and their perceptions of ideological polarization in their countries’ party systems are related with their support for democracy. We show that citizens who hold more extreme ideological positions are indeed less supportive of democracy and that such a negative relationship is strengthened as citizens’ extremism increases. However, we also show that the citizens who display higher levels of principled support for democracy are those who perceive parties to be neither too distant nor too close to each other in ideological terms. In other words, while a very polarized partisan supply seems to undermine popular commitment with democracy, very low polarization may have similar consequences.
publishDate 2022
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2022
2023
2023
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
format article
status_str publishedVersion
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv http://hdl.handle.net/10230/56841
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1755773922000066
url http://hdl.handle.net/10230/56841
http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s1755773922000066
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv Inglés
language_invalid_str_mv Inglés
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv European Political Science Review. 2022;14(2):188-205.
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
rights_invalid_str_mv http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv application/pdf
application/pdf
dc.publisher.none.fl_str_mv Cambridge University Press
publisher.none.fl_str_mv Cambridge University Press
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv reponame:Repositorio Digital de la UPF
instname:Universitat Pompeu Fabra
instname_str Universitat Pompeu Fabra
reponame_str Repositorio Digital de la UPF
collection Repositorio Digital de la UPF
repository.name.fl_str_mv
repository.mail.fl_str_mv
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