Relative out-party hostility and its consequences in multiparty democracies

Abstract

How extensive and intense is out-party hostility in contemporary multiparty democracies, and what are its consequences for democratic attitudes, political engagement, and voting behavior? While previous studies have highlighted increasing trends in such hostility, existing measures of the concept fall short in three key respects: they fail to account for the breadth and intensity of hostility in multiparty systems, they do not offer a singular measure for overall hostility, and they do not account for the relative prevalence of negative versus positive party affect. This paper introduces a new measure, ‘Relative Hostility’ to overcome these limitations. Using data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) across 48 multiparty democracies, this study compares the effects of ‘Relative Hostility’ with those of existing measures of out-party hostility and Affective Polarization on democratic attitudes, support for extremism, and political participation. The findings demonstrate that ‘Relative Hostility’ more accurately explains the adverse effects on democracies, such as increased dissatisfaction with democracy and support for extremist parties. These findings underscore the urgent need for developing strategies that mitigate out-party hostility to bolster democratic resilience.