A cosmopolitan–communitarian cleavage around the world? Evidence from ideological polarization and party–voter linkages

Abstract

Can structural conflict over globalization be observed outside Western Europe? When does such a cosmopolitan–communitarian cleavage emerge? These questions are highly relevant as similar conflicts over open borders seem to take place in various countries. To answer these questions, we analyze electoral competition on issues related to globalization such as migration and international integration in Germany, Mexico, Poland, Turkey, and the U.S. We investigate ideological polarization on these two issues at the level of both voters and parties, as well as their linkage through structural and issue voting. At the level of the voters, we analyze preferences on the two issue dimensions with data from the World Values Survey. In order to arrive at valid measures of parties’ policy positions on the same dimensions, we combine data from electoral manifestos, public claims data, and expert surveys. Finally, we link voters’ structural positions and issue preferences with parties’ policy positions through a series of ordered logistic regressions. Our comparative analysis reveals that in our sample a cosmopolitan–communitarian cleavage can be observed only among the affluent immigration countries. We discuss potential explanations for this finding.