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Far-right party influence on polarization dynamics in electoral campaign

Eva Rifà, Joan Massachs, Emanuele Cozzo, Julian Vicens

Abstract

Political polarization has attracted increasing attention in recent years, driven by the rise of social media and the global emergence of far-right populist movements. This study investigates the dynamics of structural polarization during electoral campaigns in multi-party systems, with a particular focus on the presence of far-right actors and their influence on polarization patterns and hate speech. Using retweet networks as a measure of structural polarization, we analyze two case studies in Spain: the 2022 Andalusia regional elections, where the far-right party Vox was a significant contender, and the 2019 Barcelona city council elections, where the party had no representation. Our results reveal that the presence of a far-right party intensifies polarization, leading to the formation of two distinct ideological blocks aligned along left-right ideological axes, as observed in Andalusia. In contrast, the Catalan independence movement in Barcelona diluted the alignment of voters, resulting in a more complex, multi-axis polarization landscape. We also explore the relationship between polarization and hate speech, finding an anti-correlation between them in both cases. Our findings underscore the significant role of far-right movements in driving political polarization and the nuanced effects of different political contexts on polarization dynamics.

Far-right party influence on polarization dynamics in electoral campaign

Abstract

Political polarization has attracted increasing attention in recent years, driven by the rise of social media and the global emergence of far-right populist movements. This study investigates the dynamics of structural polarization during electoral campaigns in multi-party systems, with a particular focus on the presence of far-right actors and their influence on polarization patterns and hate speech. Using retweet networks as a measure of structural polarization, we analyze two case studies in Spain: the 2022 Andalusia regional elections, where the far-right party Vox was a significant contender, and the 2019 Barcelona city council elections, where the party had no representation. Our results reveal that the presence of a far-right party intensifies polarization, leading to the formation of two distinct ideological blocks aligned along left-right ideological axes, as observed in Andalusia. In contrast, the Catalan independence movement in Barcelona diluted the alignment of voters, resulting in a more complex, multi-axis polarization landscape. We also explore the relationship between polarization and hate speech, finding an anti-correlation between them in both cases. Our findings underscore the significant role of far-right movements in driving political polarization and the nuanced effects of different political contexts on polarization dynamics.

Paper Structure

This paper contains 14 sections, 1 equation, 12 figures, 6 tables.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Andalusia 2022 Regional Elections
  3. Barcelona 2019 City Council Elections
  4. Methods
  5. Data
  6. Communities
  7. Polarization
  8. Hate Speech Detection
  9. Results
  10. Community analysis
  11. Polarization and network size
  12. Polarization and hate speech
  13. Stability of communities
  14. Discussion

Figures (12)

  • Figure 1: Number of usernames containing the main political party names for each community.
  • Figure 2: Network of users of the Twitter discussion for Andalusia elections. The green community correspond to Vox; blue and orange communities correspond to PP and Cs; purple, red and cyan correspond to PorA, PSOE-A and AA.
  • Figure 3: Network of users of the Twitter discussion for Barcelona elections. The green community corresponds to Cs, blue are from Junts, purple corresponds to BComú, red corresponds to PSC, yellow corresponds to CUP and amber corresponds to ERC.
  • Figure 4: Number of retweets per day during the electoral period by community.
  • Figure 5: The structural polarization for each day as a function of average total degree and network size.
  • ...and 7 more figures