Affective polarisation and the sorting of policy preferences in multiparty systems

A growing body of research has documented increasing affective polarisation across democratic societies. While recent research has identified a relationship between affective polarisation and policy preferences, less attention has been paid to how such identity-based conflict relates to the structure of belief systems. This article argues that affectively polarised individuals should have greater alignment between their policy preferences to maintain consistency with their cultural group identity. The analysis examines Western European multiparty systems using data from the European Election Study’s 2024 wave, which allows affective polarisation to be measured using attitudes towards party supporters. The analyses examine the hypothesis that immigration attitudes, reflecting cultural group boundaries, will be more associated with other issue positions among individuals with higher affective polarisation. Consistent with this expectation, the results show that immigration attitudes become increasingly aligned with positions across other policy domains as affective polarisation increases.