Secessionist Conflict and Affective Polarization, Survey Data, Catalonia, 2017-2018

Can secessionism be a basis for affective or social polarisation? Despite much research on recent independence movements, their relationship to polarisation, a key mechanism theorised as increasing the risk of violent conflict, remains less understood. We argue that the issue of secession can be a basis of affective polarisation along both policy and ethnic group lines even in the case of non-violent disputes, and posit a number of expectations regarding such secessionist-based polarisation. We test our argument with the case of Catalonia, a substate territory that has experienced a deep secessionist crisis since 2017, using new data from a panel survey and embedded experiments fielded across two key time periods.

We find that individuals’ secessionist preferences condition high levels of affective polarisation, with pro and anti-independence advocates having strong negative views and stereotypes of one another. In addition, there is spillover in terms of stereotypes of associated language groups. We also document a group of moderates that exhibit far less polarisation. Finally, we provide evidence on the persistence of these overall patterns. Our results contribute to understanding the underexplored polarisation dynamics of secessionist movements, particularly in contexts where high intensity violence (e.g. terrorism, civil war) has not occurred.