Perceived Political Polarisation in Germany and Switzerland

The next speaker in this ECREA 2018 session is Jasmin Kadel, who presents a comparative study of polarisation across Switzerland and Germany. Polarisation can be understood along factual (across issues), perceived (misjudgments about polarisation in society), and affective dimensions (appreciation of co-partisan others); the study examined such polarisation amongst adult newspaper readers in both countries.

Factual polarisation turned out to be slightly stronger in Switzerland than in Germany, but it is weak in both countries; perceived polarisation, however, is greater in both countries, and especially so in Germany – Germans are less polarised but see them selves as more polarised than the Swiss. Affective polarisation is strongest, and again Germans have even greater affection for co-partisans and disaffection for counter-partisans than the Swiss.

Both sides of debates feel that counter-partisans are better represented in the media than their own side; the Swiss also perceive there to be greater media diversity in the media environment than the Germans do. Swiss perceive their society to be more polarised if their own side is challenged. Some such differences may be explained by the perception of far-right party AfD as outside of the acceptable political spectrum in Germany, and of counterpart SVP as part of the political system in Switzerland.