How Urban–Rural Feelings Shape Party Support Across Europe

Why This Study Matters

Sven Hegewald and Dominik Schraff investigate whether the widening political differences between cities and the countryside extend beyond preferences and voting into emotional distance—what they call place-based affective polarization. Clarifying whether place identity and resentment produce social hostility as well as policy divides matters for understanding party realignment and social cohesion in contemporary Europe.

What They Measured

Place-based affective polarization is defined as the gap between in-group and out-group affect toward people from one’s own type of place (urban or rural). The authors pair this affect measure with indicators of place-based resentment, place identity, and respondents’ party-family preferences to assess how emotions about place relate to political choice.

How the Study Was Done

The analysis draws on original survey data from nine European countries. Respondents’ feelings toward urban and rural populations were scored to calculate in-group versus out-group affect; those scores were then compared across respondents and linked to self-reported support for party families, distinguishing GAL (green, alternative, libertarian) and TAN (traditional, authoritarian, nationalist) affiliations.

Key Findings

• Place-based affective polarization is substantial along the urban–rural divide in several European countries.
• Strong feelings of place-based resentment and salient place identity accompany higher affective distance between urbanites and ruralites.
• Higher place-based affective polarization is correlated with support for GAL parties among urban respondents and with support for TAN parties among rural respondents.

The authors treat these associations as correlational rather than causal.

Implications for European Politics

Emotional divisions tied to where people live appear to map onto distinct party-family preferences, indicating that urban–rural identity can help organize contemporary political cleavages and may reinforce partisan sorting across European contexts.