Workshop CERIUM-BrIAS: The end of affective polarization?

Affective polarisation has received enormous scholarly attention in the last decade. First introduced by the seminal article by Iyengar and colleagues in 2012, the concept of affective polarisation captures the affective distance between political in- and out-groups. While originally applied to the context of the United States, it has long spread across the world, including to European political science (Reiljan, 2020; Wagner, 2021). In the meantime, however, the initial scholarly excitement about affective polarisation seems to have given way to growing scepticism about the accuracy, conceptual depth and explanatory value of the concept.

While originally assumed to contribute to the study of the deteriorating state of Western liberal democracies, more recent findings cast doubt on this causal relationship (Broockman et al., 2023; Voelkel et al., 2023). Furthermore, despite repeated criticism of the measurement of AP as the spread between like-dislike scores towards political parties (see Röllicke, 2023; Maes et al., 2024; Bernaerts, 2025), it remains the gold standard of the field with new measurement suggestions (e.g. Campos & Federico, 2025; Finkel et al., 2021; McMurtrie et al., 2024) struggling to systematically replace it. At the same time, political theorists increasingly question the current use of the concept of affective polarisation and problematise the sometimes overly simplistic ways in which it has been related to democracy (Schedler, 2023; Rostbøll, 2024).

All of this begs the question: Has affective polarisation been used as a catch-all term to grasp broader divisions and conflict in society which fails to grasp the underlying phenomena of interest – such as democratic demise, interpersonal friction or intergroup conflict? Or have we arrived at a pivotal moment in the study of affective polarisation where the concept grows into adulthood, requiring new ways to approach the concept and its broader study?

In this multidisciplinary workshop, we want to pay attention to both the conceptual questions (what exactly is it we are trying to grasp with the concept of AP?), the measurement problems (are we actually measuring what we claim to be measuring?) but also the broader question of relevance (should we re-shift our attention to other concepts for studying the broader questions we are tackling?).

We specifically aim to bring together different theoretical and empirical perspectives from different disciplines to generate new insights into the role of affective polarisation in the decline and erosion of democracy worldwide.

Programme

Thursday, 4 February 2027

Friday, 5 February 2027