Publications

Forthcoming
Karell D, Freedman M, Gidron N. Analyzing Text and Images in Digital Communication: The Case of Securitization in American White Supremacist Online Discourse. Socius. Forthcoming. Publisher's VersionAbstract

Sociological research on online discourse increasingly uses digital data consisting of messages combining multiple modes of media, with meaning arising from contents’ interaction across modes. Yet, techniques to study this interplay are underdeveloped relative to the toolkit for analyzing solely texts. The authors introduce an automated approach for relationally analyzing texts and images, focusing on how to examine the discursive meaning emerging from concepts’ connections across associated text and image modes. The authors validate this approach using a crowdsourced task and obtain results suggesting that applying social network metrics to semantic space can generate useful insights into how people understand discourse. To illustrate this approach, the authors examine the concept of “securitization” in online white supremacist discourse. The findings indicate that ideas of securitization link notions of personalistic leadership with imagery of space and place. This analysis demonstrates how the authors’ approach helps researchers understand multimodal material and meaning-making in digital discourse.

2023
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 VersionAbstract
While 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 VersionAbstract
Comparative 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.Abstract
Concern 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
2022
Fuller S, Adams J, Horne W, Gidron N. Populism and the affective partisan space in nine European publics: Evidence from a cross-national survey. Frontiers in Political Science. 2022;4. Publisher's VersionAbstract

While scholars increasingly link affective polarization to the rise of populist parties, existing empirical studies are limited to the effects of radical right parties, without considering the possible effects of leftist populist parties or of parties' varying degrees of populism. Analyzing novel survey data across eight European publics, we analyze whether citizens' affective party evaluations broadly map onto these parties' varying degrees of populism, along with their Left-Right ideologies. We scale survey respondents' party feeling thermometer evaluations and social distance ratings of rival partisans using multidimensional scaling (MDS) to estimate a two-dimensional affective partisan space for each mass public, finding that in most (though not all) publics our mappings are strongly related to the parties' varying degrees of populism, as well as to Left-Right ideology. We substantiate these conclusions via analyses regressing respondents' affective ratings against exogenous measures of the parties' Left-Right ideologies and their degrees of populism. Our findings suggest that in many European publics, populism structures citizens' affective ratings of parties (and of their supporters) to roughly the same degree as Left-Right ideology.

Gidron N, Sheffer L, Mor G. Validating the Feeling Thermometer as a Measure of Partisan Affect in Multi-Party Systems. Electoral Studies. 2022;80. Publisher's VersionAbstract
Affective polarization is increasingly studied comparatively, and virtually all studies that do so operationalize it using the feeling thermometer. Yet this survey instrument has not yet been validated in a multi-party context. We argue that for the thermometer to be a valid measure of partisan affect also in multi-party systems, it needs to capture sentiment towards partisans and to correlate with other measures of affective polarization. Using panel study fielded throughout Israel’s elections in 2019-2020, we show that both requirements hold. We use text analysis to substantiate that thermometer scores reflect sentiment towards party supporters, and demonstrate that they go hand-in-hand with preferences for social distance and discrimination in economic games. We discuss implications for the study of affective polarization.
 
Gidron N. Populism and Social Status. In: Manucci L The Populism Interviews: A Dialogue with Leading Experts. Routledge ; 2022. Publisher's Version populism and social status proofs.pdf
Gidron N, Sheffer L, Mor G. The Israel Polarization Panel Dataset, 2019–2021. Electoral Studies. 2022;80. Publisher's VersionAbstract
Research on affective polarization—that is, dislike and hostility across party lines—originated in the study of the American two-party system and only recently traveled into multiparty contexts. This emerging body of research is hindered by lack of comprehensive data that capture multiple dimensions of polarization and examine how they develop over the course of political events such as electoral campaigns or the formation and dissolution of coali- tion governments. This research note introduces the Israel Polarization Panel [IPP] Dataset, 2019-2021, designed specifically to address this shortcoming. The IPP consists of 10 panel waves, following the same individuals over four elections. We first survey the key features of the IPP and then discuss its applications. The dataset is publicly available and should be of interest to scholars of polarization, political behavior and electoral politics.
Barak-Corren N, Gidron N, Feldman Y. Majority Nationalism Laws and the Equal Citizenship of Minorities: Experimental, Panel, and Cross-Sectional Evidence from Israel. Journal of Legal Studies. 2022;51 (22). Publisher's VersionAbstract

Western societies are increasingly enacting majority nationalism laws to strengthen majority culture. We propose that these laws may alter public attitudes about minorities’ equal citizenship with varied impact on majorities and minorities. To explore this issue, we examine the impact of Israel’s recently enacted Nation Law on the Jewish majority and the Arab minority. Experimental evidence from before the Law’s enactment reveals that both minority and majority respondents perceive the passage of the Law as permitting discrimination against the minority in housing, employment, and voting, but the effect on minority perceptions is larger. Panel and cross-sectional data from before and after the Law’s enactment reveal that the effect on majority respondents was fleeting, whereas the negative impact on minority respondents was stronger and more durable. These findings expose the troubling effects of majority nationalism laws and suggest that law may operate as a prism, expressing different messages to different groups.

Superti C, Gidron N. Too Old to Forget: The Dynamics of Political Trust among Immigrants. Political Studies. 2022;70 (3) :624–654. Publisher's VersionAbstract

Scholars have argued that immigrants’ trust in institutions is the result of the exposure to host-country institutions but also shaped by past experiences in the country of origin. These experiences create a “home-country point of reference,” a political/institutional memory that becomes the relevant comparison for any political/institutional interaction in the host country. We develop further this concept and unpack its key determinants—the age at migration and the historical conditions of the home country at the specific time of migration. Only those immigrants who were too old to forget the historical and contextual features of the country-of-origin institutions at the time of migration will rely on this comparison when interacting with institutions in the host country. Across time, there is both a continuous positive/negative accumulation of trust for the host-country institutions among those with less/more democratic points of reference. We examine immigrants’ political trust using survey evidence from Israel.

Gidron N. Many Ways to be Right: Cross-Pressured Voters in Western Europe. British Journal of Political Science. 2022;52 (1) :146-161.Abstract

Mainstream parties in Western Europe are increasingly struggling to hold together their base of support. As a lens for exploring this changing electoral landscape, this article focuses on the growing share of the electorate that is cross-pressured between conservative and progressive attitudes on economic and cultural issues. It argues that a stable asymmetry characterizes Western European mass attitudes: while support for the left is common among voters with progressive attitudes on both issues, it is enough to be conservative on one issue to turn right. Analyzing survey data collected from 1990 to 2017, the study shows that cross-pressures are resolved in favor of the right and examines the trade-offs this poses to center-right parties. These findings contribute to debates on electoral dealignment and realignment and shed light on the electoral choices of the center-right.

2020
Gidron N, Adams J, Horne W. American Affective Polarization in Comparative Perspective. Cambridge University Press; 2020. Publisher's VersionAbstract

American political observers express increasing concern about affective polarization, i.e., partisans' resentment toward political opponents. We advance debates about America's partisan divisions by comparing affective polarization in the US over the past 25 years with affective polarization in 19 other western publics. We conclude that American affective polarization is not extreme in comparative perspective, although Americans' dislike of partisan opponents has increased more rapidly since the mid-1990s than in most other Western publics. We then show that affective polarization is more intense when unemployment and inequality are high; when political elites clash over cultural issues such as immigration and national identity; and in countries with majoritarian electoral institutions. Our findings situate American partisan resentment and hostility in comparative perspective, and illuminate correlates of affective polarization that are difficult to detect when examining the American case in isolation.

Noam G, Hall PA. Populism as a Problem of Social Integration. Comparative Political Studies. 2020;53 (7) :1027-1059.Abstract

We argue that support for parties of the radical right and left can usefully be understood as a problem of social integration—an approach that brings together economic and cultural explanations for populism. With comparative survey data, we assess whether support for parties of the radical right and left is associated with feelings of social marginalization. We find that people who feel more socially marginal—because they lack strong attachment to the normative order, social engagement, or a sense of social respect—are more likely to be alienated from mainstream politics and to support radical parties. We also find an association between indicators for recent economic and cultural developments often said to affect social status and feelings of social marginalization, especially among people with low incomes or educational attainment. We conclude that problems of social integration and subjective social status deserve more attention from scholars of comparative political behavior.

Gidron and Hall 2019
2019
Gidron N, Adams J, Horne W. Toward a Comparative Research Agenda on Affective Polarization in Mass Publics. APSA Comparative Politics Newsletter. 2019;29 :30-36. gidron_et_al._2019_cp_newsletter.pdf
Gidron N, Ziblatt D. Center-Right Political Parties in Advanced Democracies. Annual Review of Political Science. 2019;22 :17-35.Abstract

This review proposes a comparative research agenda on center-right parties in advanced democracies, bringing together research in American and comparative politics. Political scientists have recently closely examined the decline of the center-left and the rise of the radical right but have paid less attention to the weakening of center-right parties. Yet cohesive center-right parties have facilitated political stability and compromises, while their disintegration has empowered radical challengers. After presenting an overview of right-wing politics in Western democracies and weighing different definitions of the electoral right, we discuss two factors that shape variations in center-right cohesion: organizational robustness of center-right partisan institutions and the (un)bundling of conservative mass attitudes on different policy dimensions. Last, we argue that a full account of the rise of the radical right cannot focus solely on the strategies of the center-left but must incorporate also the choices, opportunities, and constraints of center-right parties.

Gidron N, Mijs J. Do changes in material circumstances drive support for populist radical parties? Panel data evidence from The Netherlands during the Great Recession, 2007–2015. European Sociological Review. 2019;35 (5) :637-650.Abstract

Political developments since the 2008 financial crisis have sparked renewed interest in the electoral implications of economic downturns. Research describes a correlation between adverse economic conditions and support for radical parties campaigning on the populist promise to retake the country from a corrupt elite. But does the success of radical parties following economic crises rely on people who are directly affected? To answer this question, we examine whether individual-level changes in economic circumstances drive support for radical parties across the ideological divide. Analysing eight waves of panel data collected in the Netherlands, before, during, and after the Great Recession (2007–2015), we demonstrate that people who experienced an income loss became more supportive of the radical left but not of the radical right. Looking at these parties’ core concerns, we find that income loss increased support for income redistribution championed by the radical left, but less so for the anti-immigration policies championed by the radical right. Our study establishes more directly than extant research the micro-foundations of support for radical parties across the ideological divide.

gidron_mijs_2019.pdf
2018
Barak-Corren N, Feldman Y, Gidron N. The Provocative Effect of Law: Majority Nationalism and Minority Discrimination. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies. 2018;15 (4) :951–986.Abstract

Western societies have experienced ethnic and religious diversification in recent decades. These demographic changes have been met by efforts to defend the local dominant culture using majority nationalism laws, intended to protect the cultural heritage of the majority. We empirically examine majority nationalism laws’ expressive effects on patterns of minority discrimination using the Israeli draft Nation Law (NL) as a case study. Drawing on two experimental surveys of a representative sample of the majority population of Israel (N = 602), our results lend weak support to the hypothesis that majority nationalism laws increase bias against minorities, and modest support to the hypothesis that such laws generate unintended spillover effects across different minority groups and from the public to the private sphere. Our main finding is that majority nationalism laws provoke a backlash reaction from those who oppose them. We define this as the provocative effect of law and discuss its relation to the expressive law theory. The results suggest that the effects of majority nationalism laws may vary systematically across ideological groups and spheres of discrimination.

Enos R, Gidron N. Exclusion and Cooperation in Diverse Societies: Experimental Evidence from Israel. American Political Science Review. 2018;112 (4) :742-757.Abstract

It is well-established that in diverse societies, certain groups prefer to exclude other groups from power and often from society entirely. Yet as many Western societies are diversifying at an increasingly rapid pace, the need for cross-group cooperation to solve collective action problems has intensified.  Do preferences for exclusion inhibit the ability for individuals to cooperate and, therefore, diminish the ability for societies to collectively provide public goods?  Some scholarship suggests this may not be the case, since preferences are often not diagnostic of behavior.  Turning to Israel, a society with multiple overlapping and politically salient cleavages, we use a large-scale lab-in-the-field design to investigate how much preferences for exclusion among the Jewish majority predict discriminatory behavior toward the Arab minority.  We establish that such preferences appear to be symbolic attitudes, are held especially strongly by low-status members of the majority group, and are strongly predictive of costly non-cooperation.  This preferences-behaviors relationship appears unaffected by mitigating factors  proposed in the intergroup relations literature such as outgroup stereotypes and repeated interactions. The influence of symbolic attitudes on directly observed behavior, which has not been empirically demonstrated before,  calls for a closer examination of the social roots of exclusionary preferences.

2017
Gidron N, Kaplan Y. Institutional Gardening: the Supreme Court in Economic Liberalization. Lewis & Clark Law Review. 2017;21 (3) :685-733.Abstract

What role has the US Supreme Court played in the liberalization of the American economy over the last three decades? By examining more than 800 cases of judicial review on issues related to economic policy-making between 1946 and 2012, we show that the Court participated in the post-1980s shift to the market economy through disciplining non-complying governmental actors that refused to fall in line with the liberalization agenda. We term this process ‘institutional gardening’: the Court allowing some policies to flourish while weeding out others, gradually nudging governmental actors toward a particular political vision. This is a cumulative process, involving many routine Court decisions rather than a few landmark cases. We find that the frequency with which businesses are able to bring their cases before the Court, typically under the conditions of low media attention, drives the push toward economic liberalization.

Gidron and Kaplan 2017.pdf

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