Cleavage politics, polarisation and participation in Western Europe

Polarisation over cultural issues and the emergence of radical, often populist, challenger parties indicate a fundamental restructuring political conflict in Western Europe. The emerging divide crosscuts and, part, reshapes older cleavages. This special issue introduction highlights how transformation cleavage structures relates to dynamics polarisation participation. contributions innovate two ways. First, they adapt concepts measures ideological affective context Europe’s multi-party multi-dimensional party competition. Second, emphasise electoral protest politics, examining shape non-electoral Apart from introducing contributions, combines different datasets – Chapel Hill Expert Survey, Comparative Study Electoral Systems European Social Survey sketch an empirical picture differentiated with types only weakly associated cross-arena, cross-nationally time.