Articles in Professional Journals by Mariano Torcal
American Behavioral Scientist, 2024
This article presents evidence that political representatives in Spain exhibit significant levels... more This article presents evidence that political representatives in Spain exhibit significant levels of affective polarization, drawing on data from a 2022-23 survey of Spanish MPs in the national and regional parliaments. These attitudes, measured by affective social distance from supporters of other parties, hinder parliamentary agreements but only in regional parliaments, a tendency that is especially visible among leftist and nationalist representatives towards supporters of the new radical right-wing party (VOX). By contrast, there is no evidence that affective social affinity is associated with less consensual attitudes. Given the absence of studies on affective polarization among political elites, these findings are important because they suggest that, although elites might contribute to the growing trends of pernicious polarization among their supporters and may deteriorate compromise at the regional level, this kind of polarization does not necessarily preclude consensus and agreement in national politics.
Political Behavior, 2024
The emergence of new challenger parties calls for a reassessment of the party-model of opinion fo... more The emergence of new challenger parties calls for a reassessment of the party-model of opinion formation by examining different sources of cues across types of voters and the conditions that make cueing more effective. Although new challenger parties may lack sufficient time to develop identification with groups and distinctive party reputations, they may still provide effective cues and reduce their competitive disadvantage in developing affective social identity ties. This article investigates this argument by assessing the impact of party and leader cues on voters from mainstream and challenger parties and examining how expressive partisanship (partisan social identities) and instrumental partisanship (party competence evaluations) moderate these effects. Utilizing data from a survey experiment conducted in Spain during a period of party system restructuring, we find similar cueing effects across party and leader cues when comparing voters of both mainstream and challenger parties. Additionally, contrary to our expectations, we observe that cueing effects for mainstream party voters combine expressive and instrumental reasoning, while those for new challenger party voters are driven by perceptions of party competence reputation only. These findings challenge the prevailing belief that familiarity and time enhance cueing effects. They also deviate from socio-psychological approaches that emphasize the emotional and identity components of partisanship in strengthening cueing effects.
Scientific Reports, 2024
In this article, we present the findings of a comprehensive longitudinal social network analysis
... more In this article, we present the findings of a comprehensive longitudinal social network analysis
conducted on Twitter across four consecutive election campaigns in Spain, spanning from 2015 to
2019. Our focus is on the discernible trend of increasing partisan and ideological homogeneity within
interpersonal exchanges on this social media platform, alongside high levels of networking efficiency
measured through average retweeting. This diachronic study allows us to observe how dynamics
of party competition might contribute to perpetuating and strengthening network ideological and
partisan homophily, creating ‘epistemic bubbles’ in Twitter, yet showing a greater resistance to
transforming them into ‘partisan echo-chambers.’ Specifically, our analysis reveals that the rise of
a new radical right-wing party (RRP), Vox, has heightened ideological homogeneity among users
across the entire ideological spectrum. However, this process has not been uniform. While users
aligned with mainstream political parties consistently share content that reinforces in-party affinity,
resulting in highly efficient ‘epistemic bubbles,’ the emergence of the RRP has given rise to a distinct
group of users associated with the most extreme partisan positions, characterized by a notable
proportion of out-partisan hostility content, which has fostered the creation of low-efficient ’partisan
echo-chambers.’
Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 2023
What makes populist leaders, responsible for many episodes of democratic backsliding, especially ... more What makes populist leaders, responsible for many episodes of democratic backsliding, especially appealing to a significant part of the electorate? In the following pages we argue that the effect of perceptions regarding leaders' 'warmth' causes them to be perceived as having good intentions toward and even being part of 'the people, ' resulting in a more positive overall evaluation among citizens with more critical views of democratic representativeness (external political efficacy). We test this hypothesis in two very different political systems, Argentina and Spain, using data from original surveys that contain batteries of questions on warmth and competence trait dimensions for multiple leaders in both countries. The results show that while perceptions of traits along both warmth and competence dimensions are important for the evaluation of all leaders in democratic systems, the interactive effect between external political efficacy and perceptions of warmth is important for explaining more positive evaluations of populist leaders.
Revista Argentina de Ciencia Política, 2023
The last Argentine elections of 2021 seem to have been dominated by the conflict between two bloc... more The last Argentine elections of 2021 seem to have been dominated by the conflict between two blocs or alliances: Frente de Todos (FdT) and Juntos por el Cambio (JxC). This conflict has taken shape in public opinion during the last years, displaying a polarization phenomenon that has been called “la grieta”, an expression used to describe the division between Kirchnerists and anti-Kirchnerists. In the present work we try to address the identity elements that are behind this process of citizen polarization that is marking the public sphere in this country. Framing it within the comparative debate on affective polarization and connecting with the debate that exists among experts on the case, in this article we argue that despite the importance of the identity conflict around left/right labels, this conflict is still predominantly about identities generated by the Peronism/justicialismo versus anti-Peronism/anti-justicialismo conflict, especially to explain within individual variation during the electoral campaigns.
Electoral Studies, 2023
In multiparty contexts, we know that affective polarization tends to cluster in ideological blocs... more In multiparty contexts, we know that affective polarization tends to cluster in ideological blocs, although the factors driving this process are still quite unexplored. In this paper, we contribute to filling this gap in the literature by exploring the capacity of ideological identity vis-à-vis issue-based ideology to polarize sentiments towards party voters into two opposing left-right blocs. Specifically, we provide empirical evidence that affective attachments to ideological labels increase the affective distance between ideological blocs to a greater extent than issue extremity and issue consistency. These bipolarizing effects of ideological identity persist even when the identity is inconsistent with issue-based ideology. Additionally, we show that bipolar affective polarization exerts little reverse influence on ideological identity. We support these arguments using an original survey from the TRI-POL project carried out in five multiparty systems: Argentina, Chile, Italy, Portugal and Spain.
Electoral Studies, 2023
One overlooked aspect of the rising levels of affective polarization is its effect on general soc... more One overlooked aspect of the rising levels of affective polarization is its effect on general social trust. In the present article, we analyze the relationship between affective polarization and various measures of social trust using two separate panel surveys that were implemented in Spain in two different political periods (2014-2015 and 2018-2019), in order to assess whether the individual variations in the levels of affective polarization may affect people's trust in other members of society. Our findings suggest that affective polarization towards outparty members has a mutually reinforcing negative relationship with general social trust, generating a pervasive equilibrium of social and political deterioration that might contribute to worsening democratic quality. This effect is not compensated by any significant bonding effect resulting from in-partisan identification, whose effects seem to be restricted just to the very closest inner-circle individuals.
South European Society and Politics, 2022
The present study addresses the effect of the discourse of elites on Twitter on citizens’ affecti... more The present study addresses the effect of the discourse of elites on Twitter on citizens’ affective polarisation through a quasi-experiment that was embedded in a survey panel. Participants were invited to follow one of the Twitter accounts of nine candidates from the main political parties during the 2019 European Parliament electoral campaign in Spain. Experiment compliance among participants was con-firmed using web-tracking data (passive metre). The results show that exposure to candidates’ Twitter accounts by self- selection does not increase affective polarisation. Although high levels of polarisation might contribute to building echo chambers, the polarising content contained in the partisan Twitter accounts has no effect on increasing affective polar-isation, even among those who strongly identify with such parties. This finding confirms the so-called limited media effect hypothesis for social media.
South European Society and Politics, 2022
This is an introductory article for a special issue on affective
polarisation in Spain. After dis... more This is an introductory article for a special issue on affective
polarisation in Spain. After discussing the concept and its
operationalisation in multi-party settings, we offer data on
affective polarisation in Spain and Southern Europe from a
comparative perspective using the Comparative National
Election Project (CNEP) and Comparative Study of Electoral
Systems (CSES). In the second part, we pay special attention
to the Spanish case, analysing different dimensions of affective
polarisation and its evolution overtime, by taking advantage
of an extensive number of indicators from the E-DEM
panel survey. Finally, we describe its relationship with ideological
polarisation and analyse its possible multidimensional
nature. We conclude by introducing the rest of contributions
of this special issue.
South European Society and POlitics, 2022
This article seeks to gain a deeper understanding on the
relationship between polarisation and p... more This article seeks to gain a deeper understanding on the
relationship between polarisation and political trust in multiparty
systems by examining the effect of different indicators
of affective and ideological polarisation on the within-individual
variation of political trust over time. Using unique
data collected from two separate online survey panels in
Spain, our findings show that in multiparty contexts it is
important to use two different measures of affective polarisation,
as they have two distinct effects on political trust.
While in-group affective polarisation tends to increase political
trust, out-group polarisation has a negative impact on
within-individual levels of trust in all democratic institutions.
The latter effect is much stronger, adding nuance to existing
explanations of the overall decline in political trust observed
in many democracies in contemporary democracies.
European Political Science Review, 2022
Does ideological polarization undermine or strengthen people's principled support for democracy? ... more Does ideological polarization undermine or strengthen people's principled support for democracy? In this study, we suggest that different manifestations of ideological polarization have different implications in this respect. Using data from 11 surveys conducted with representative samples of the adult populations of a group of liberal democratic countries, part of the Comparative National Elections Project, we look at how people's level of ideological extremism and their perceptions of ideological polarization in their countries' party systems are related with their support for democracy. We show that citizens who hold more extreme ideological positions are indeed less supportive of democracy and that such a negative relationship is strengthened as citizens' extremism increases. However, we also show that the citizens who display higher levels of principled support for democracy are those who perceive parties to be neither too distant nor too close to each other in ideological terms. In other words, while a very polarized partisan supply seems to undermine popular commitment with democracy, very low polarization may have similar consequences.
Frontiers in Political Science, 2021
We test the importance of responsiveness, performance and corruption to explain the evolution of ... more We test the importance of responsiveness, performance and corruption to explain the evolution of political trust in Spain between 1997 and 2019. To this end, the study analyses two longitudinal datasets, namely, a repeated cross-sectional dataset from the Spanish samples of Eurobarometer and an individual-level panel survey conducted during a period of economic recovery in 2015. The study finds that perceptions about political corruption and responsiveness matter greatly in shaping political trust and to a lesser extent economic performance. Although the Great Recession is likely responsible for the sharp decline in trust towards political parties and the parliament between 2008 and 2012, the analysis suggests that trust in representative institutions remains low even after the Recession because of a series of devastating corruption incidents and a perceived lack of responsiveness of the political system. On the other hand, the study finds indications that trust in the judicial system might have been mainly affected by perceptions of corruption.
Italian Journal of Electoral Studies (IJES), 2021
This article empirically revisits and tests the effect of individual distance
from parties on the... more This article empirically revisits and tests the effect of individual distance
from parties on the EU integration dimension and on the left–right dimension for vote choice in both national and European elections. This analysis is based on the unique European Election Study (EES) 2014 survey panel data from seven EU countries. Our findings show that in most countries the effect of individual distance on the EU integration dimension is positive and significant for both European and national elections. Yet the effect of this dimension is not uniform across all seven
countries, revealing two scenarios: one in which it is only relevant for Eurosceptic voters and the other in which it is significant for voters of most parties in the system. The first is mainly related to the presence of a ‘hard’ Eurosceptic party in the party supply, but the second, which indicates a more advanced level of Europeanisation of
party systems, is not explained by most current theoretical and empirical contributions. We conclude by proposing two additional explanations for this latter scenario in which the EU integration dimension is present for most voters in both type of elections, including those voting for the main parties. Our findings and further discussion have implications for the understanding of the Europeanisation of national politics and its relationship with vote choice.
How can we explain the recent decline of trust in representative institutions of the EU in many o... more How can we explain the recent decline of trust in representative institutions of the EU in many of its Member States? This article presents evidence supporting the congruence hypothesis, according to which citizens have been extrapolating their increasing distrust in national institutions to the EU institutions. We also find that these contagion effects are produced by citizens’ evaluations of national governments. Furthermore, we show that these spillover effects from the national to the EU level tend to be stronger in situations of economic recession and political crisis. The only counterbalance to this contagion comes from citizens’ positive evaluation of EU performance. We test these general arguments based on a twofold panel analysis of the Spanish case, a country that has suffered a remarkable deterioration of political trust in a context of profound economic and political crisis, by analysing data from a micro-level panel study and 28 pooled surveys from the Eurobarometer between 1999 and 2015.
A new theoretical development for examining the institutionalization of party systems is proposed... more A new theoretical development for examining the institutionalization of party systems is proposed in this paper. We build on electoral coordination theories to disaggregate volatility into the vote transfers that occur between or towards parties that are in equilibrium (which we call endogenous volatility) and those that are not (exogenous volatility). The former captures accountability, and the latter reflects the number of voters who are acting in accordance with the existing equilibrium in the party system. Exogenous volatility measures the institutionalization of party systems. We also show that endogenous volatility depends on government performance, while exogenous volatility is a function of institutional openness. The empirical evidence comes from an original data set that includes 448 electoral cycles in lower-house elections in 66 countries between 1977 and 2011.
This article contributes to the literature on political heuristics by reporting two survey experi... more This article contributes to the literature on political heuristics by reporting two survey experiments conducted in Spain in 2014-2015 on party and ideology cues regarding preferences on a range of EU and domestic issues in European and general elections. The findings reveal that party cues increase voters' competence to take positions on EU issues more than ideological ones. Cues increase competence in a similar fashion regardless of the nature of the topic, although the effect of cues that parties provide on EU issues seems to be stronger than that of cues on domestic policies. Party cueing effects are also consistent across different electoral arenas (national versus European), and for all type of parties regardless of their age or positions towards the EU integration process.
This study tests the links between political and economic performance and satisfaction with democ... more This study tests the links between political and economic performance and satisfaction with democracy (SWD) in Spain. Contrary to the dominant theoretical paradigm that explains the aggregate evolution of and the individual level differences in SWD mainly by means of economic factors, we present evidence that evaluations of the political process are equally relevant to account for both changes in individuals' SWD over time and the evolution of SWD at the national level. Unlike most existing literature, this study supports its argument by combining analyses of a micro-level panel dataset (CIUPANEL) and of a pooled aggregate-level panel dataset based on the Spanish samples in the Eurobarometer and the Latinobarómetro between 1986 and 2014.
Consensual-pluralistic institutional features of representative democracies have traditionally be... more Consensual-pluralistic institutional features of representative democracies have traditionally been associated with satisfaction with democracy (SWD). However, more recent studies report contradictory results on the effects of some of these institutional determinants on SWD. This article confirms these puzzling findings by showing that electoral proportionality increases SWD while other pluralistic factors such as government fractionalization produce the opposite effect. We illustrate this duality of counteracting effects by expanding the number of cases under study to different regions of the world in a comprehensive TSCS sample of 58 democracies between 1990 and 2012. In the second part of the paper, we are able to reconfirm these findings at the individual level by employing survey data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems.
Metodologia De Encuestas, Jan 3, 2006
The implications of intergroup political conflicts for social cooperation are still an under-stud... more The implications of intergroup political conflicts for social cooperation are still an under-studied topic. We report on two online survey experiments in which we implement multiple trust games to assess the impact of different political conflicts on trust behaviour in two national samples in Spain and Portugal. The results suggest that citizens' social trust is heavily affected by partisanship, favouring in-group party members over out-group party identifiers. This finding is robust in both countries, although the partisanship overall effect seems to be stronger in Spain, which has a more polarized party system. Moreover, the effect involves all parties despite their size and ideology. However, trust among different partisans mirror interparty positioning. A second study for the Spanish case shows that the partisanship treatment is the one affecting trust the most, followed by the ideological and regional conflicts, which are usually considered long-standing divides with a greater impact in European democracies.
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Articles in Professional Journals by Mariano Torcal
conducted on Twitter across four consecutive election campaigns in Spain, spanning from 2015 to
2019. Our focus is on the discernible trend of increasing partisan and ideological homogeneity within
interpersonal exchanges on this social media platform, alongside high levels of networking efficiency
measured through average retweeting. This diachronic study allows us to observe how dynamics
of party competition might contribute to perpetuating and strengthening network ideological and
partisan homophily, creating ‘epistemic bubbles’ in Twitter, yet showing a greater resistance to
transforming them into ‘partisan echo-chambers.’ Specifically, our analysis reveals that the rise of
a new radical right-wing party (RRP), Vox, has heightened ideological homogeneity among users
across the entire ideological spectrum. However, this process has not been uniform. While users
aligned with mainstream political parties consistently share content that reinforces in-party affinity,
resulting in highly efficient ‘epistemic bubbles,’ the emergence of the RRP has given rise to a distinct
group of users associated with the most extreme partisan positions, characterized by a notable
proportion of out-partisan hostility content, which has fostered the creation of low-efficient ’partisan
echo-chambers.’
polarisation in Spain. After discussing the concept and its
operationalisation in multi-party settings, we offer data on
affective polarisation in Spain and Southern Europe from a
comparative perspective using the Comparative National
Election Project (CNEP) and Comparative Study of Electoral
Systems (CSES). In the second part, we pay special attention
to the Spanish case, analysing different dimensions of affective
polarisation and its evolution overtime, by taking advantage
of an extensive number of indicators from the E-DEM
panel survey. Finally, we describe its relationship with ideological
polarisation and analyse its possible multidimensional
nature. We conclude by introducing the rest of contributions
of this special issue.
relationship between polarisation and political trust in multiparty
systems by examining the effect of different indicators
of affective and ideological polarisation on the within-individual
variation of political trust over time. Using unique
data collected from two separate online survey panels in
Spain, our findings show that in multiparty contexts it is
important to use two different measures of affective polarisation,
as they have two distinct effects on political trust.
While in-group affective polarisation tends to increase political
trust, out-group polarisation has a negative impact on
within-individual levels of trust in all democratic institutions.
The latter effect is much stronger, adding nuance to existing
explanations of the overall decline in political trust observed
in many democracies in contemporary democracies.
from parties on the EU integration dimension and on the left–right dimension for vote choice in both national and European elections. This analysis is based on the unique European Election Study (EES) 2014 survey panel data from seven EU countries. Our findings show that in most countries the effect of individual distance on the EU integration dimension is positive and significant for both European and national elections. Yet the effect of this dimension is not uniform across all seven
countries, revealing two scenarios: one in which it is only relevant for Eurosceptic voters and the other in which it is significant for voters of most parties in the system. The first is mainly related to the presence of a ‘hard’ Eurosceptic party in the party supply, but the second, which indicates a more advanced level of Europeanisation of
party systems, is not explained by most current theoretical and empirical contributions. We conclude by proposing two additional explanations for this latter scenario in which the EU integration dimension is present for most voters in both type of elections, including those voting for the main parties. Our findings and further discussion have implications for the understanding of the Europeanisation of national politics and its relationship with vote choice.
conducted on Twitter across four consecutive election campaigns in Spain, spanning from 2015 to
2019. Our focus is on the discernible trend of increasing partisan and ideological homogeneity within
interpersonal exchanges on this social media platform, alongside high levels of networking efficiency
measured through average retweeting. This diachronic study allows us to observe how dynamics
of party competition might contribute to perpetuating and strengthening network ideological and
partisan homophily, creating ‘epistemic bubbles’ in Twitter, yet showing a greater resistance to
transforming them into ‘partisan echo-chambers.’ Specifically, our analysis reveals that the rise of
a new radical right-wing party (RRP), Vox, has heightened ideological homogeneity among users
across the entire ideological spectrum. However, this process has not been uniform. While users
aligned with mainstream political parties consistently share content that reinforces in-party affinity,
resulting in highly efficient ‘epistemic bubbles,’ the emergence of the RRP has given rise to a distinct
group of users associated with the most extreme partisan positions, characterized by a notable
proportion of out-partisan hostility content, which has fostered the creation of low-efficient ’partisan
echo-chambers.’
polarisation in Spain. After discussing the concept and its
operationalisation in multi-party settings, we offer data on
affective polarisation in Spain and Southern Europe from a
comparative perspective using the Comparative National
Election Project (CNEP) and Comparative Study of Electoral
Systems (CSES). In the second part, we pay special attention
to the Spanish case, analysing different dimensions of affective
polarisation and its evolution overtime, by taking advantage
of an extensive number of indicators from the E-DEM
panel survey. Finally, we describe its relationship with ideological
polarisation and analyse its possible multidimensional
nature. We conclude by introducing the rest of contributions
of this special issue.
relationship between polarisation and political trust in multiparty
systems by examining the effect of different indicators
of affective and ideological polarisation on the within-individual
variation of political trust over time. Using unique
data collected from two separate online survey panels in
Spain, our findings show that in multiparty contexts it is
important to use two different measures of affective polarisation,
as they have two distinct effects on political trust.
While in-group affective polarisation tends to increase political
trust, out-group polarisation has a negative impact on
within-individual levels of trust in all democratic institutions.
The latter effect is much stronger, adding nuance to existing
explanations of the overall decline in political trust observed
in many democracies in contemporary democracies.
from parties on the EU integration dimension and on the left–right dimension for vote choice in both national and European elections. This analysis is based on the unique European Election Study (EES) 2014 survey panel data from seven EU countries. Our findings show that in most countries the effect of individual distance on the EU integration dimension is positive and significant for both European and national elections. Yet the effect of this dimension is not uniform across all seven
countries, revealing two scenarios: one in which it is only relevant for Eurosceptic voters and the other in which it is significant for voters of most parties in the system. The first is mainly related to the presence of a ‘hard’ Eurosceptic party in the party supply, but the second, which indicates a more advanced level of Europeanisation of
party systems, is not explained by most current theoretical and empirical contributions. We conclude by proposing two additional explanations for this latter scenario in which the EU integration dimension is present for most voters in both type of elections, including those voting for the main parties. Our findings and further discussion have implications for the understanding of the Europeanisation of national politics and its relationship with vote choice.
providing important lessons for the comparative standpoint. A series of different individual-level measures of likes and dislikes towards different social groups, including partisan supporters, national and subnational identifiers, and other social groups, are provided in the survey, allowing the authors to observe the social identities
behind the growing levels of individual affective polarisation. Contributions in this volume examine the time trends of affective polarisation over this period of intense political instability and crisis and evaluate the potential factors that might explain its dynamics.
This book pays special attention, on the one hand, to the party supply effect and, on the other, to the increasing partisan and ideological content of press and social media. It also looks at some potential behavioural and attitudinal consequences of affective polarisation such as political trust, the change and dynamics of party system, turnout, and support for radical right-wing parties (RRPs).
Affective Polarisation in Spain: Electoral, Regional and Media Conflictuality will be beneficial for students, researchers, and scholars of Spanish history and politics, sociology, and international relations. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of South European Society and Politics.
3.2 Abstencionistas. Niveles y factores explicativos de largo plazo
3.2.1 Los recursos y la participación electoral
3.2.2 Las actitudes y la participación electoral
3.2.3 Los factores explicativos contextuales
3.3.1 La ideología, oferta partidista y participación electoral
3.3.2 La movilización política y la participación electoral
3.4 Conclusiones