Studying the relationship of nationality, ideology and affective polarization: the case of Estonia

Abstract

Estonia is a strongly divided country on an ethnic basis, in which approximately 24% of the population is Russian-speaking. Competition between ethnic groups for different values, like public resources and political representatives, increases polarization and creates conflicts. In recent centuries, partisan-ideological sorting has taken place, which has increased the strength of political identities and polarized mass political behavior. Such splitting and partisan-ideological sorting lead to affective polarization, which is one of the main concerns that threaten the well-being of democracy. This Master's thesis examines how ethnicity and ideology affect affective polarization in Estonia. In the case of the years selected for analysis, it can be seen that while ethnicity played an important role and was a more important indicator in the study of affective polarization, in 2022 ideological self-placement was the more important factor in affective polarization. In addition, it turned out that the level of affective polarization is higher for people who ideologically place themselves at the extremes than those who place themselves more moderately on one or the other side of the left-right scale. However, from the linear regressions carried out in the work was seen that ideological self-placement, ethnicity and age, and gender used as control variables describe a small variation of affective polarization, therefore, it is important to investigate what other factors are influencing this phenomenon in the future.