Common Enemies or Catalysts for Conflict? Geopolitical and Domestic Threats as Moderators of Partisan Animosity

Affective polarization has intensified across many democracies, raising concerns about cooperation and democratic legitimacy. A longstanding expectation in political psychology is that shared external threats reduce divisions by making a common identity salient. Yet the evidence is inconsistent: foreign aggression sometimes reduces partisan hostility, whereas immigration, terrorism, economic insecurity, pandemics, or cultural threat can reinforce existing cleavages. Even similar threats may produce convergence in one context and polarization in another.Research on threat and affective polarization points in competing directions. Theories of superordinate identity and rally-round-the-flag dynamics suggest shared danger can temporarily reduce partisan divisions. Other work shows threats activate existing identities, reinforce grievances, and heighten hostility toward opponents. The central question is not whether threat affects affective polarization, but which features of threats, contexts, and individuals determine its direction and magnitude. The Research Topic therefore develops a more conditional, predictive account of the threat–polarization relationship, distinguishing threats that cross partisan boundaries from those mapping onto existing cleavages, and external shocks from politically constructed threats. We seek theory-driven, methodologically diverse contributions across countries and party systems linking threat perceptions to partisan affect and, in turn, to political behavior such as participation, mobilization, and cross-partisan cooperation. By combining individual, elite, media, and contextual levels, we clarify why similar threats encourage convergence in some settings but polarization in others, with implications for engagement, democratic resilience, and depolarization.This Research Topic examines how geopolitical, social, economic, and political threats shape affective polarization and related forms of political engagement, emphasizing the conditions determining whether threat produces unity or division.We welcome contributions addressing topics including, but not limited to:• Geopolitical and security threats: interstate conflict, foreign rivalry, terrorism, external interference;• Domestic and societal threats: immigration, economic insecurity, demographic change, pandemics, cultural or status threat;• Threat characteristics: shared or group-specific, material or symbolic, exogenous or constructed;• Political and communicative moderators: elite consensus, partisan framing, media narratives, misinformation;• Identity mechanisms: salience of national, partisan, ideological, or ethnic identities;• Individual-level mechanisms: fear, anger, anxiety, disgust, authoritarianism, threat sensitivity, cognitive processing;• Cross-national and longitudinal variation in threat and affective polarization;• Behavioral consequences: how shifts in animosity affect participation, mobilization, deliberation, and cooperation;• Consequences for democratic resilience and depolarization, and whether threats yield durable reductions in hostility.We welcome original empirical research—experimental, survey, observational, longitudinal, computational, qualitative—and theoretical and review contributions.By assembling research across threats, contexts, and methods, this Research Topic moves beyond whether threat unites or divides to identify when societies meet danger by widening political boundaries or—temporarily or durably—bridging them. Topic editors: Emre Erdoğan, Zlatin Mitkov Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/85392/common-enemies-or-catalysts-for-conflict-geopolitical-and-domestic-threats-as-moderators-of-partisan-animosity