Electoral Competition and Partisan Affective Polarisation in Spain

ABSTRACT Previous studies have reported that political competition increases partisan affective polarisation. We test this hypothesis using the four waves of a survey on affective polarisation in Spain and a repeated measures design. Two of these waves were conducted during two electoral campaigns. This allows us to study whether in-group and out-group sentiments are affected by election proximity. Differences in sentiments towards in-group and out-group members increase with elections. However, this is mostly driven by an increase in positive sentiments towards the in-group. Elections also increase negative affects towards out-group members, but to a lesser extent. In Spain, these elections hardly affected territorial affective polarisation.