Winners, losers, and affective polarization
Abstract
We analyze the winner-loser gap in affective polarization. Using data from 37 countries over years 1996 – 2016 from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), we find that winners’ affective polarization is significantly greater than losers’, and the difference is due to winners’ consistently higher in-party favoritism. These findings are robust when controlling for partisanship and ideological distance to winning party. Although much of the literature focuses on the impact of out-party dislike on affective polarization, our results align with research in social identity theory indicating that intergroup discrimination is driven primarily by in-group favoritism rather than out-group dislike. Given that winners are more likely than losers to support their favored party’s violation of democratic norms, our work suggests that in-party favoritism is an important but overlooked contributor to problematic implications of affective polarization.
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While there is some work on how electoral outcomes impact affective polarization, it does not explicitly or fully interrogate the role of power.
“While there is some work on how electoral outcomes impact affective polarization (e.g., Andrews & Huang, 2025;Gidron & Sheffer, 2024;Hamrak, 2025;Phillips & Warner, 2026), it does not explicitly or fully interrogate the role of power.”
From Measuring affective polarization: Matching concepts to measures (2026) · cites this paper as Andrews & Huang, 2025
Cites
The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization in the United States
Iyengar, S., Lelkes, Y., Levendusky, M., Malhotra, N., & Westwood, S. J. (2019) · Annual Review of Political Science · doi:10.1146/annurev-polisci-051117-073034 · Cited by 3,317 · see citing works
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Affective Polarization in Multiparty Systems
Wagner, M. (2021) · Electoral Studies · doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2020.102199 · Cited by 593 · see citing works
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American Affective Polarization in Comparative Perspective
Gidron, N., Adams, J., & Horne, W. (2020) · doi:10.1017/9781108914123 · Cited by 481 · see citing works
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Garzia, D., Ferreira da Silva, F., & Maye, S. (2023) · Public Opinion Quarterly · doi:10.1093/poq/nfad004 · Cited by 137 · cited 1× · see citing works
“Garzia et al. (2023) fi nd similar trends in affective polarization across samples of partisans and the electorate as a whole in eighteen established democracies.”
Differentiating the sources of post‐election partisan affect warming
Gidron, N., & Sheffer, L. (2024) · European Journal of Political Research · doi:10.1111/1475-6765.12641 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
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Hamrak, B. (2025) · Electoral Studies · doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102967 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Election Outcomes and Affective Polarization in the United States
Phillips, J. B., & Warner, S. B. (2026) · Political Research Quarterly · doi:10.1177/10659129251411892 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
“…expands this to the political realm, noting that supporters of Barack Obama kept their yard signs up for longer than John McCain supporters did after the 2008 election, and Andrews and Huang (2024) show in cross-national contexts that winners exhibit more in-party love than does the losing side.”
InfluentialGonzález‐Ocantos, E., & Meléndez, C. (2025) · Comparative Political Studies · doi:10.1177/00104140251400343 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
“Conversely, winning reinforces satisfaction with the status quo (Segovia, 2023) and in-group favoritism (Andrews & Huang, 2024).”
Measuring affective polarization: Matching concepts to measures
Druckman, J. N., Klar, S., Krupnikov, Y., Levendusky, M., & Ryan, J. B. (2026) · Political Psychology · doi:10.1111/pops.70152 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
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Partisan sorting, affective polarization, and democratic backsliding: evidence from South Korea
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Eck, B., & Paulis, E. (2025) · British Journal of Political Science · doi:10.1017/s0007123425000365 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
“…recent research suggests that affective polarization may weaken the accountability relationship between parties and voters (Ward and Tavits 2019), increasing voters ’ willingness to tolerate undemocratic behaviour from their own party if it keeps them in power (Andrews and Huang 2024).”
Partisan Wishful Thinking in Polarized Times
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Love Blinds? Winners, In-Party Favoritism, and Support for Violations of Democratic Norms
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“Electoral victory affirms partisan identity and thus increases in-party favoritism (Andrews and Huang 2025).”
Self-citationCitizen attitudes and democratic resilience in Taiwan and Thailand: a comparative perspective
Huang, K.-P., & Koh, Y.-J. (2025) · Democratization · doi:10.1080/13510347.2025.2569004
- Authors
- Andrews, J., & Huang, Y.-S.
- Affiliations
- University of California, USA
- Corresponding author
- Andrews, Josephine
- Venue
- Party Politics
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2024-10-21
- Volume
- 31
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 841-853
- ISSN
- 1354-0688 (ISSN-L)
- 1460-3683
- OpenAlex
- W4403613178
- Cited by
- 11
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 6 · 2025: 5
- FWCI
- 17.62
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Party Politics (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Electoral Systems and Political Participation
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Populism, Right-Wing Movements
- Keywords
- affective polarization, winner-loser gap, social identity theory, intergroup discrimination, ideological distance, democratic norms, party identification, Comparative Study of Electoral Systems
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