Geographic identities and affective polarization in Norway

Kiran Auerbach, postdoc at the Department of Comparative Politics, will give a 30-minute presentation followed by 15 minutes of Q&A. The event is in a hybrid format, you are welcome to join us for lunch from the Corner room at DIGSSCORE. Food is provided on a first-come first-served basis.

Click here for digital attendance.

Abstract:

Do geographic cleavages shape political resentment and lead to affective polarization? Previous scholarship has measured place-based resentment in the American context. In this regard, resentment of rural citizens vis-à-vis urbanites has been empirically linked to support for right-wing populists, including the election of Trump. On the other side of the Atlantic, scholars have linked rural grievances to the leave campaign in the Brexit referendum. We build on this literature to study geographic polarization in the Norwegian context. We leverage original survey data from the Norwegian Citizen Panel and ask a series of questions to measure rural and urban resentment. We take the difference between these attitudes towards ingroups versus outgroups to measure affective polarization. Our work contributes to comparative literature on post-material cleavages and polarization that are changing the nature of electoral competition in advanced democracies.