Abstract Scholars have suggested that polarization among political elites may undermine the functioning of democratic institutions. While extensively studied at the mass level, affective polarization at the elite level and its potential consequences for cooperation and governance remain understudied. This study examines how elite affective polarization influences government coalition formation in parliamentary democracies. We argue that when political elites are highly polarized along affective lines, the barriers to cooperation and compromise are higher, as elites may view other parties not only in terms of policy differences but also in terms of the capacity to act as credible coalition partners. We hypothesize that, holding constant ideological differences, potential coalitions characterized by higher affective distance are less likely to form. We evaluate our hypothesis using elite survey data collected among local politicians in Swedish municipalities. We find that affective distance between potential coalition partners reduces the probability of coalition formation, separate from the effect of left-right ideological disagreement and positions on multiculturalism. The findings suggest that as affective polarization intensifies among political elites, it may hinder parties’ ability to form stable governing coalitions, with potential consequences for democratic functioning.
Bäck et al. (Tue,) studied this question.