Talk:
“Understanding and Addressing Citizens’ Support for Violence Against Politicians? Evidence from Survey Experiments in Belgium and France”
by
Damien Bol
Center for Political Research (CEVIPOF)
Sciences Po, Paris
damien.bol@sciencespo.fr
Date and Room Info
Thursday, October 30, 2025, 12:30 p.m.
A-130
Abstract
Classic theories of state formation and democratization emphasize curbing civilian violence to consolidate the state’s monopoly on legitimate force and its capacity to peacefully resolve conflicts through elections. Yet rising affective polarization, aggressive elite rhetoric, and anonymous social platforms have renewed fears of violence between out-partisans. We examine individual support for violence against politicians using two pre-registered survey experiments in France and Belgium that manipulate politician characteristics and violence’s severity. We find that such attitudes remain rare, although they are significant for online verbal abuse. Moreover, violent attitudes are largely unrelated to affective polarization, as they are diffusely directed at politicians regardless of their characteristics. Finally, we show that simple interventions (humanizing politicians through perspective-taking or stressing the importance of ideological pluralism for democracy) reduce support for mild forms of political violence. These findings suggest that protecting democratic institutions requires addressing diffuse societal predispositions to violence beyond partisan divides.
Short Bio
I’m a Professor at CEVIPOF, Sciences Po Paris. Before that, I was a (tenured) Professor in the Department of Political Economy of King’s College London. I’m a political scientist by training, but I frequently collaborate with economists trying to bridge the two disciplines. Political scientists would say that I’m a rational choice analyst, but economists would say that I’m a behaviorist. My research explores how people experience representative democracy, both from a micro and comparative perspective. I’m especially interested in citizens’ attitudes toward democratic values and institutions, including electoral systems and deliberative assemblies. I’ve also worked on more classic topics like political parties, voting, and the like. Methodologically, I rely heavily on experiments and surveys, often conducted in Belgium, Canada, France, and the UK, which are my main countries of expertise. I also sometimes write about how to improve these methods, too.