Threat perception and partisan animosity: Evidence from Argentina and Brazil

Abstract This study examines antagonism between opposing political camps in Argentina and Brazil, two Latin American countries that have experienced heightened polarization and growing support for contentious right-wing populist leaders. Using original survey data, we analyze how specific perceived threats relate to social distance toward supporters of rival presidential candidates, which we use as a proxy for outgroup animosity. We examine multiple threat domains, including perceived threats from rival political camps, other social groups (racists and immigrants) and threats to symbolic values (equality and the nation). Our findings show that threat perception is a significant correlate of outgroup distance in both countries, but the forms of perceived threat linked to outgroup distancing differ across political camps. We also find partial support for the hypothesis that threat perception is more strongly associated with outgroup distance among supporters of the populist right, particularly once potential confounders are taken into account. While this pattern is evident in Brazil, in Argentina, the left and right camps do not differ significantly in how strongly threat perception predicts outgroup distance.