Hate prompts participation: Examining the dynamic relationship between affective polarization and political participation

Abstract

Political participation has long been considered a cornerstone of democracy. While most studies on political participation have been grounded on a normative approach, which assumes that political participation is driven by positive civic actions, recent studies suggest that political participation is also driven by negative forces such as overconfidence in knowledge and partisan communication flows. This article builds on the latter line of research by exploring the role of affective polarization on political participation. While this line of research is not new, it suffers from a lack of clear causal order. This study relies on three-wave panel data collected during the 2022 Korean presidential election. To ensure methodological rigor, we utilized both cross-lagged and fixed-effects panel analyses. Our findings show that affective polarization stimulates political participation rather than the reverse path. In addition, we did not observe a reciprocal relationship. Implications for democracy are discussed.