Too incivil to polarize: the effects of exposure to mediatized interparty violence on affective polarization

When incivility between opposing political parties in the institutional arena escalates to the level of physical violence involving party militants, individuals who witness the shocking images through the media can be expected to react emotionally. But how do citizens who affectively identify with one of the clashing sides experience such an incident? Known mechanisms of polarization suggest that partisans would grow further distant in their interpretation of events, and consequently increase their animosity towards the out-group. A rare opportunity to study such a dynamic through a natural experiment, in fact demonstrates the opposite: after a right-wing mob in North Macedonia stormed the Parliament and attacked left-wing MPs, right-wing supporters’ hostile attitudes towards the opposing camp subsided.