Preference versus salience: towards a deeper understanding of social conflict in public opinion

Contemporary (European) politics is characterised by a strong presence of divisive discourses that pit ‘us’ against ‘them’. The strong presence of such ‘conflict frames’ raises three questions concerning the salience of conflicts in public opinion: (1) Which conflicts are salient among the general public and how do these perceived conflicts relate to each other? (2) How does the perceived level of conflicts (i.e. the salience) relate to preferences in these conflicts? And (3), is the mere salience of social conflicts—distinct from people’s preferences in conflicts—relevant for populist voting? Survey data from the Netherlands from 2020 show that perceptions of conflict are structured along two highly correlated dimensions: a socio-economic dimension and a cultural dimension, and that the salience of conflicts and people’s preferences in these conflicts are only loosely correlated. We also find that generalized conflict thinking moderates the relationship between outgroup attitudes and voting for populist parties.