Conflicting perceptions: Misalignment between citizens’ and politicians’ evaluations of political conflict

Abstract This study examines how citizens and politicians evaluate different types of political conflict. Conflicts can be substantive in nature, involving disagreements over policy measures or clashes over core ideological values, or less substantive, concerning strategic relationships between parties. While conflict is inherent to politics, we know little about how different types of conflict are perceived by the public and how this differs from the perceptions of political elites. Whether citizens and their elected representatives share a common understanding of the role of conflict in politics is crucial, as misalignment may hamper political representation and effective governance. Empirically, our study relies on a survey experiment conducted among citizens ( N = 8264) and politicians ( N = 331) in four countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, and Switzerland) to investigate whether different types of conflict lead to different evaluations. Our results show that politicians are more likely to endorse ideological conflicts (over goals or core values) and substantive conflicts (over policy measures), yet citizens are more likely to approve of personal conflicts than politicians. Furthermore, politicians judge citizens’ perceptions of substantive and ideological conflicts more positively than citizens themselves and overestimate the concern citizens have with personal conflicts. These results may have important implications. If politicians fail to recognize that citizens are less accepting of political conflicts, this might be detrimental for trust in political parties and democracy at large – thus undermining the legitimacy of the political system.