On October 25th at noon, please join Dr. Laia Balcells Ventura (Dept. of Government, Georgetown University) on Zoom for her lecture, "Secessionism and Affective Polarization; Cases of Scotland, Catalonia, and Northern Ireland."
Can territorial contestation be a basis for affective polarization? If so, how does it vary across territories? The burgeoning literature on affective conflicts and polarization has largely focused on partisan divisions; Dr. Balcells argues that contentious political issues such as those relating to territorial integrity should also be a basis for such affective polarization, where citizens feel concord with those sharing policy preferences and animus for those who do not. Dr. Balcells specifies hypotheses about territorial-policy based affective polarization, and brings 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, Dr. Balcells results show strikingly similar levels of affective polarization.
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