Elite Polarization

Ideological polarization on the elite level can be measured in its simplest form as the absolute ideological distance between the positions of the most extreme party on the left and the most extreme party on the right of the political spectrum.

A number of studies have examined whether ideological polarization among parties translates into affective polarization among the mass public (Banda and Cluverius (2018)). However, as these studies were conducted in the dichotomous US party system, the question remains to what extent these findings generalize to multiparty systems.

On the other hand, very few studies have looked at elite affective polarization, i.e. the level of dislike between politicians. Such is difficult to grasp, as it would require anonymous surveying of elected officials.

Measures

Use cases