Gidron N.
Why Israeli Democracy Is in Crisis. Journal of Democracy. 2023;34 (3) :33-45.
Publisher's VersionAbstract
In January 2023, massive protests erupted in Israel against the right-wing government’s proposed reforms to restructure the country’s democracy–reforms that mirror the types of institutional changes that populist parties on the right in Hungary and Poland have used to steer their countries away from liberal democracy. Concern that the proposed reforms would lead to a concentration of power in the executive and a weakening of the courts sparked protests throughout Israel. These protests in turn led to the suspension of the proposed reforms. Analysis suggests that the erosion of democracy is driven by conservative elites rather than far-right parties. Likud, the establishment center-right party, exhibits intense populism but its voters do not overwhelmingly reject liberal democracy. Israel’s case highlights the need to consider both mass and elite attitudes and challenges traditional distinctions in understanding democratic backsliding.
Gidron N, Adams J, Horne W.
Who Dislikes Whom? Affective Polarization between Pairs of Parties in Western Democracies. British Journal of Political Science. 2023;53 (3) :997-1015.
Publisher's VersionAbstractWhile dislike of opposing parties, i.e., affective polarization, is a defining feature of contemporary politics, research on this topic largely centers on the United States. We introduce an approach that analyzes affective polarization between pairs of parties, bridging the US two-party system and multiparty systems in other democracies. Analyzing survey data from 20 Western democracies since the mid-1990s, we first show that partisans’ dislike of out-parties is linked to elite policy disagreements on economic issues and, increasingly over time, also to cultural issues. Second, we argue and empirically demonstrate that governing coalition partners in parliamentary democracies display much warmer feelings towards each other than we would expect based on elite policy (dis)agreements. Third, we show that radical right parties are disliked much more intensely than we would expect based on policy disputes and coalition arrangements. These findings highlight the policy-based and institutional underpinnings of affective polarization.
Horne W, Adams J, Gidron N.
The Way we Were: How Histories of Co-Governance Alleviate Partisan Hostility. Comparative Political Studies. 2023;56 (3) :299–325.
Publisher's VersionAbstractComparative politics scholars argue that consensual democratic institutions encourage power-sharing that promotes ‘kinder, gentler’ politics. We uncover one reason why this is the case: elite inter-party cooperation in consensual systems is associated with reduced inter-party hostility in the mass public. This is because governing parties’ supporters feel much more warmly towards their coalition partner(s) than we can explain based on policy agreement alone. Moreover, these warm affective evaluations linger long after the coalition itself has dissolved. We substantiate our arguments via analyses of CSES survey data from 19 western democracies between 1996-2017, showing that current and past co-governance is associated with substantially warmer inter-party affective evaluations. This implies that electoral systems which encourage coalition governance may defuse partisan hostility.
horne_et_al._2022_cps.pdf Adams J, Bracken D, Gidron N, Horne W, O'Brien DZ, Senk K.
Can’t We All Just Get Along? How Women MPs Can AmeliorateAffective Polarization in Western Publics. American Political Science Review. 2023;117 (1) :318-324.
AbstractConcern over partisan resentment and hostilityhas increased acrossWestern democracies.Despitegrowingattention to affective polarization, existing research fails to ask whetherwhoserves in officeaffects mass-level inter-party hostility. Drawing on scholarship on women’s behavior as electedrepresentatives and citizens’ beliefs about women politicians,we positthe women MPs affective bonushypothesis:all else equal, partisans display warmer affect towards out-parties with higher proportionsof women MPs.Weevaluatethis claim with anoriginal dataset on women’s presence in125politicalparties in 20Western democracies from 1996-2017, combined with survey data on partisans’ affectiveratings of political opponents. We show that women’srepresentationis associated with lower levelsof partisan hostility,andthat both men and women partisans react positively to out-party womenMPs.Increasing women’s parliamentary presence couldthusmitigate cross-party hostility.
adams_et_al._2022_apsr.pdf