Balcells, LaiaDaniels, Lesley-AnnKuo, Alexander2025-03-102025-03-102024Balcells L, Daniels LA, Kuo A. Territorial disputes and affective polarization. Eur J Polit Res. 2024 Aug;63(3):906-26. DOI: 10.1111/1475-6765.126400304-4130http://hdl.handle.net/10230/69892Can territorial disputes within countries be a basis for affective polarization? If so, how does it vary across territories? A burgeoning literature on affective polarization has largely focused on partisan divisions; we argue that contentious political issues such as those relating to territorial integrity can also be a basis for such affective polarization, where citizens feel concord with those sharing such policy preferences and animus for those who do not. We specify hypotheses about territorial-policy-based affective polarization and bring comparative survey evidence from three European regions with salient and contentious territorial claims: Scotland, Catalonia and Northern Ireland. While these three cases encompass different outcomes of territorial disputes, our results show strikingly similar levels of affective polarization.application/pdfeng© 2023 The Authors. European Journal of Political Research published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Consortium for Political Research.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium,provided the original work is properly cited.info:eu-repo/semantics/articlehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12640PolarizationTerritorial disputesSecessionismNationalismSocial identityinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess