What polarizes citizens? An explorative analysis of 817 attitudinal items from a non-random online panel in Germany.

ABSTRACT: Various studies point to the lack of evidence of distributive opinion polarization in Europe. As most studies analyse the same item batteries from international social surveys, this lack of polarization might be due to an item's issue (e.g., the nature or substance of an item) or item formulation characteristics used to measure polarization. Based on a unique sample of 817 political attitudinal items asked in 2022 by respondents of a non-random online panel in Germany, we empirically assess the item characteristics most likely to lead to distributive opinion polarization-measured with the Van der Eijk agreement index. Our results show that only 20% of the items in our sample have some-at most moderate-level of opinion polarization. Moreover, an item's salience in the news media before the

SUBMITTER: Teney C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11068170 | biostudies-literature | 2024

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature