Tag: Polarization Index

How Polarised Is Support for Ukraine Across Europe?

Posted on May 18, 2026 | Policy Brief

20260518 How Polarised Is Support for Ukraine Image 01

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 triggered broad public support across Western democracies. Since then, support in the United States has declined and become sharply partisan. In this policy brief, we use Eurobarometer data from 2022 to 2024 to show that while overall support for Ukraine remains high in the European Union, it has declined over time and become more politically polarised. We introduce a polarisation index to compare trends across countries and over time. There is substantial heterogeneity: while support remains close to universal in some countries, such as Sweden, others have seen marked increases in polarisation, with support weakening particularly on the far right. We find that higher inflation is associated with greater polarisation for costly policies, such as sanctions against Russia, but not for humanitarian aid. Finally, we present suggestive evidence that polarisation in support for sanctions may reflect domestic political debate.

From Consensus to Polarisation?

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 prompted widespread public support for Ukraine on both sides of the Atlantic. According to a PEW survey less than one month after the invasion, only 7% of Americans (9% of Republicans and 5% of Democrats) said the US is providing too much support to Ukraine (PEW, 2022). Two years later, overall support dropped significantly and support for Ukraine became politically polarised: with 47% of Republicans but only 13% of Democrats saying that the US is providing too much support (PEW, 2024).

In this brief, we use microdata from Eurobarometer covering over 185,000 respondents to evaluate whether the same trends are present in the EU. We show that support for Ukraine remained relatively high and stable across Europe from 2022 to 2024. This finding is consistent with other surveys that report resilient support among Europeans despite pessimism about the war’s likely outcome (Krastev and Leonard 2024) and personal costs in terms of inflation (Demertzis et al. 2023). Our brief focuses specifically on political cleavages within countries. We show that policies supporting Ukraine have become increasingly polarising in some countries and evaluate potential drivers of that polarisation.

Support for Ukraine Across the Political Spectrum

Figure 1 shows support for economic sanctions against Russia (Panel A) and humanitarian aid for Ukraine (Panel B) in the EU, by respondents’ self-reported left–right political placement in the Eurobarometer (for details on this measure, see also Lehne and Zhuang, 2023b). Support for Ukraine was high across the political spectrum in the immediate aftermath of the invasion, but declined in the latest Eurobarometer data from October 2024. The sharpest declines occur on the far right, especially for economic sanctions against Russia.

Figure 1A. Support for economic sanctions against Russia

Figure 1B. Support for humanitarian aid to Ukraine

Source: Eurobarometer and authors’ calculations.
This chart shows the mean support for each measure in April 2022 (in blue) and October 2024 (in red) in the EU. Based on binary transformations of Eurobarometer questions on support for each measure; dots show means and bars indicate 95% confidence intervals.

A similar pattern holds for military aid to Ukraine, though the average level of support is lower (not shown). Support for humanitarian aid is uniformly higher and less politically polarising; even among respondents on the very far right, more than three-quarters are in favour.

This overall pattern masks large heterogeneity across countries. Figure 2 shows support for sanctions against Russia in four European countries: Sweden, Poland, Greece and France. In Sweden, support for sanctions is close to universal, broadly uniform across the political spectrum, and has changed little in the two years since the start of the war. Similarly, in Poland, support remains very high but declines in 2024 among respondents on the centre-right. Support varies more with political leaning in countries such as France and Greece. While support for sanctions was relatively high in France in 2022, especially in the centre, it has declined markedly on the right. This pattern is repeated across many other European countries, including Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy. By contrast, in Greece, support for sanctions was comparatively lower to begin with and declined further over time. In Greece, as in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Latvia and Slovakia, support is particularly weak on the left.

Figure 2. Political Polarisation in Support for Sanctions across four European countries

2a. Sweden

2b. Poland

2c. France

2d. Greece

Source: Eurobarometer and authors’ calculations.
This chart shows mean support for sanctions against Russia in April 2022 (in blue) and October 2024 (in red) in (a) Sweden, (b) Poland, (c) France and (d) Greece. Based on binary transformations of Eurobarometer questions on support for each measure; dots show means and bars indicate standard deviations.

A Political Polarisation Index

In order to compare how politicised support for Ukraine is across countries and over time, we  develop a polarisation index (see technical note for details). This measures the extent to which each self-reported ideology group’s support for a policy differs from the country-wide average (in other words, how far the dots in Figure 1 lie from a horizontal line).  The index ranges from 0 (all groups share the same position on sanctions) to 1 (groups hold opposing positions that are perfectly predicted by political ideology). Comparing the same country over time, there are two factors that change the index: (i) within an ideology group, average support for a policy may change, and (ii) the size of ideology groups (and their weight in the index) may change as the distribution of political views in the country evolves.

Comparing across countries, the index does not depend on the left-right gradient of support. While France and Greece show opposite patterns in Figure 2, they score similarly on the sanctions polarisation index in October 2024 (0.16 and 0.15, respectively). For Sweden, Figure 2 shows much greater consensus across the political spectrum, which translates into a significantly lower polarisation score: 0.05.

We find that some policies are associated with greater polarisation than others. There is widespread support in the EU for providing humanitarian aid and welcoming refugees from Ukraine, and polarisation scores are lower for these measures than for financial aid, military aid, sanctions on Russia or Ukraine becoming an EU candidate country. At the same time, looking at the EU as a whole, there has been an upwards trend in polarisation across all measures (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Political Polarisation Indices for different policies supporting Ukraine

Source: Eurobarometer and authors’ calculations.
This chart shows the EU-average political polarisation index for six different policies supporting Ukraine. The EU average is constructed using population weights. Survey waves are unevenly spaced across time. Some policies are not asked about in some waves.

Figure 4 shows which countries are driving the increase in polarisation. It plots the polarisation score for sanctions in April 2022 (shortly after the full-scale invasion) against the corresponding score in October 2024 (the latest wave for which data are available). Austria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia show the greatest increase in polarisation over this period. Views on sanctions are also increasingly aligned with political cleavages in France, Germany, and Hungary. By contrast, Latvia shows a significant decline in polarisation while in Finland, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, and Sweden polarisation remained at very low levels more than two years into the war.

Figure 4. Political Polarisation Index for Sanctions against Russia 2022 vs 2024

Source: Eurobarometer and authors’ calculations.
This chart shows the political polarisation index for support for sanctions against Russia from the Eurobarometer data in October 2024 on the y-axis against the polarisation index in April 2022 on the x-axis. Includes all EU27 countries.

Drivers of Political Polarisation

In the next section, we show how political polarisation in support for Ukraine is related to the economy and domestic politics.

Polarisation and Price Increases

Figure 5 shows how political polarisation and inflation are related across countries in the EU. Political polarisation in support for sanctions against Russia at the end of 2024 tended to be higher in countries where prices increased faster between 2022 and 2024. As the cost of living increased, the issue of Russian sanctions became a point of contention between voters of different political leanings. Some political parties also started to capitalise on this issue to gain support. In contrast, there has been widespread agreement on the need for humanitarian aid to Ukraine and this was unaffected by the state of the economy.

Figure 5. Political Polarisation and Inflation

Source: Eurobarometer, Eurostat and authors’ calculations.
This chart shows the polarisation index for support for sanctions against Russia (in blue) and humanitarian aid for Ukraine (in red) from the Eurobarometer data in October 2024 against the average annual HICP inflation rate between 2022 and 2024 in percentage points. Includes all EU27 countries.

Polarisation and Elections

In Figure 6, we show how the polarisation index for support for sanctions against Russia (blue) and humanitarian aid for Ukraine (red) evolves around elections. Political polarisation for sanctions increases slightly around election periods, suggesting heightened debate on this issue. In contrast, polarisation in support for humanitarian aid shows little change over the election cycle.

Figure 6. Political Polarisation and Elections

Source: Eurobarometer, PPEG, Manifesto Project and authors’ calculations.
This chart shows the polarisation index for support for sanctions against Russia (blue) and humanitarian aid for Ukraine (red) in the two years before and after national parliamentary elections. Dots show means and bars indicate 95% confidence intervals. This is based on an unbalanced sample of EU countries with a lower house election between April 2022 and October 2024. For each country, only the closest election is used.

A Tale of Three Countries

Political parties play an important role in shaping the political discourse around Russia’s war on Ukraine. They are likely to both influence and be influenced by their voters’ attitudes towards supporting Ukraine.

In this section, we present a case study of three European countries that had elections between 2022 and 2024 and where parties have mentioned Russia in their manifestos according to data from the Manifesto project (see also Lehne and Zhuang, 2023a).

In Sweden, support for Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression has been consistently high along all dimensions and among voters across the political spectrum. In the Swedish elections in September 2022, six out of eight parties (including all three major parties) mentioned Russia in their party manifestos, and all supported sanctions against Russia.

Russia was also mentioned in the party manifestos of many of the parties contesting the French election in June 2022. But in France, the far-right Rassemblement Nationale broke with the other political parties and struck a more conciliatory tone towards Russia. For instance, they stated that they “… will be seeking an alliance with Russia on certain fundamental issues: European security, which cannot exist without Russia; the fight against terrorism, which Russia has fought more consistently than any other power; and convergence in the handling of major regional issues impacting France …” (Manifesto Project). This divergence is mirrored in voter attitudes. Support for sanctions against Russia has declined over time in France, especially amongst voters on the far right of the political spectrum.

In Greece, political support for sanctions against Russia is lower than in many other European countries has been declining over time. Political polarisation in support for Ukraine increased, especially around the elections in May and June 2023. Few of the political parties mentioned Russia directly in their manifestos, and then mostly in conjunction with rising prices and effects on the Greek economy.

Figure 7. Political Polarisation in Support for Ukraine

7a. Sanctions against Russia

7b. Humanitarian Aid for Ukraine

Source: Eurobarometer, Manifesto Project and authors’ calculations.
These charts show political polarisation in support for sanctions against Russia (Panel A) and humanitarian aid for Ukraine (Panel B) in France, Greece and Sweden. Vertical dashed lines show the timing of national parliamentary elections.

Conclusion

Public support for Ukraine remains high in the EU, but there are worrying signs of fragmentation. While some countries continue to exhibit broad consensus in supporting Ukraine across multiple policies, other countries have seen declining support as the debate has become aligned with domestic political cleavages. Sanctions against Russia and military aid to Ukraine have become increasingly contentious, while there is broader agreement on the need for humanitarian aid. In many countries, it is particularly voters on the far-right of the political spectrum who have become less supportive of policies supporting Ukraine.

Our analysis highlights two areas of fragility in the consensus around support for sanctions against Russia. We see some indication that the domestic political debate can drive polarisation in opinions on sanctions against Russia, with the salience of these issues increasing around elections, particularly when parties competing in the elections have different policy platforms.

Another source of fragility is the economic cost of sanctions. Countries that experienced larger increases in prices since 2022 exhibit greater political disagreement over sanctions, suggesting that economic costs can shape the political sustainability of support for Ukraine. Recent increases in energy prices, linked to the war in Iran, may further amplify political polarisation around sanctions against Russia.

Despite these pressures, clear majorities across most EU countries continue to support Ukraine, especially when it comes to humanitarian aid and welcoming refugees. European solidarity has so far proven resilient in the face of growing external pressures.

Technical note:

References

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in policy briefs and other publications are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect those of the FREE Network and its research institutes.

Income Polarization and Climate Policy Backlash

Posted on February 2, 2026 | Policy Brief

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A recurring challenge for climate policy is political backlash. Over the last decade, we have seen prominent examples like the repeal of the carbon tax in Australia in 2014, the ‘Yellow Vests’ protest against the French carbon tax between 2018 and 2020, and the rollback of climate policy in the transport sector in Sweden between 2022 and 2024. A common argument put forward to explain this backlash is distributional concerns – that carbon and fuel taxes are regressive, disproportionately burdening low-income households. Yet, these prominent episodes often look like middle-class revolts. Studies find that the Yellow Vests supporters in France had ‘modest incomes’, but few came from the poorest deciles of the income distribution. Similarly, a study of Swedish fuel tax protesters found that they had relatively high incomes. This brief proposes a complementary explanation to regressivity: when the income distribution becomes more polarized – with stronger growth at both tails relative to the middle – the tax burden can shift toward the middle. A simple three-agent example illustrates how polarization can ‘squeeze’ the middle class, potentially undermining the durability of climate policy even when the poorest are compensated.

Climate Policy Backlash: Why “Not Just the Poor”?

Fuel and carbon taxes have repeatedly triggered political controversy and, in some cases, reversals. In France, the planned 2018 increase in the carbon tax became a focal point of the Yellow Vests protests. In Australia, the economy-wide carbon pricing introduced in 2012 was repealed just two years later. And in Sweden, the current government has reduced transport fuel taxes and the biofuel mandate to lower pump prices.

These episodes are often interpreted through the lens of tax progressivity (Douanne and Fabre 2022; Ewald et al. 2022): if energy and transport fuels are necessities, the tax-to-income burden can be higher for low-income households, with implications for policy stability. But the political patterns are frequently more complex. In France, many protesters were working or middle-class rather than poor (Dormagen et al. 2022). In Sweden, fuel tax protesters had, on average, relatively high incomes (Ewald et al. 2022), and households in the bottom third of the income distribution have no transport fuel expenditure at all, which weakens a simple “regressivity” narrative.

Figure 1. Share of Swedish households with zero transport fuel expenditure, by income decile.

Source: Household expenditure survey data 1999-2012 from Statistics Sweden.

This motivates the question: what if the distributional conflict that matters politically is not only bottom-versus-top, but, more importantly, concerns what happens to the middle class?

This brief introduces a three-agent model to show that under income polarization, the relative tax burden may shift to the middle. Traditional tax progressivity indices may fail to capture this shift as they weight different parts of the income distribution. At the same time, such a change is likely to have large implications for the political action and ultimately, the environmental policy design.

A Simple Model of Tax Burden Shifts

Consider an economy with three types of households: low-income (L), middle-income (M), and high-income (H). When a good like gasoline is taxed at a constant rate, each household’s tax burden depends on how much of their budget they spend on the taxed good; their ‘budget share.’

As incomes grow over time, these budget shares change. The direction of change depends on whether the taxed good is a necessity or a luxury. For necessities — goods where spending doesn’t keep pace with income growth — the budget share falls as income rises. For luxuries, the opposite occurs. The speed at which budget shares change over time is thus governed by two factors: how responsive spending is to income changes (the income elasticity), and each household’s income growth rate.

To track how tax burdens shift between different income groups, we can examine the relative changes in their budget shares. With three income groups, we need to make three comparisons: poor versus rich, poor versus middle, and middle versus rich. If the budget share falls faster for the relatively richer household in all three comparisons, the tax becomes more regressive. If it falls faster for the relatively poorer in all three comparisons, the tax becomes more progressive.

However, a third pattern is possible: the burden can shift in a ‘polarized’ way, where the middle class loses ground relative to both the poor and the rich. In this case, whether the tax is progressive or regressive is ambiguous – it depends on which comparison we prioritize in our social welfare function.

Polarization Squeezes the Middle

We use the example of income polarization to illustrate how this middle-squeeze can occur. Following Esteban and Ray (1994) and Wolfson (1994), we define income polarization as a situation where the middle group’s income grows more slowly than both the bottom and top groups. Under polarization, the middle class shrinks as a share of total income, while both the poor and rich expand their shares. Such income polarization has been well documented in the US and Europe (e.g., Goos et al. 2009; Autor 2022).

Table 1 shows a stylized numerical example of income polarization. Low- and high-income households have higher income growth compared to the middle, whose income share shrinks. Furthermore, gasoline is a necessity (in high-income countries), and we assume uniform income elasticities so that the budget share declines as income grows for all three income groups.

Table 1: Example of income polarization

What happens to relative tax burdens under these conditions? Because low-income households have the fastest income growth, their gasoline budget share falls the quickest. The middle class, with much slower income growth, sees its budget share fall more slowly. This means the middle class shoulders more of the tax burden relative to the poor.

Similarly, high-income households also experience faster income growth than the middle class, so their budget share also falls faster. Again, the middle class ends up shouldering more relative to the rich. The middle is thus ‘squeezed’ from both directions.

Importantly, when we compare the poor directly to the rich, the tax burden shifts in a progressive direction — the poor’s relative burden falls compared to the rich. Yet this ‘traditional’ progressive pattern masks the fact that the middle class is bearing an increasing share of the burden compared to everyone else.

The political implication is clear: when taxing a necessity under income polarization, the middle class can become relative losers even when the tax appears progressive in traditional comparisons between top and bottom. In this case, climate policy backlash would come from working and middle-class groups rather than the absolute poorest, and compensating mainly the poor may be insufficient for political durability.

What This Suggests for Climate policy design

The mechanism illustrated above does not deny that tax progressivity matters. Rather, it highlights an additional vulnerability: in a polarized economy, a carbon tax on necessities may face backlash when the middle class is squeezed. Three practical implications for climate policy design follow from this.

First, protecting the bottom is essential, but may not be sufficient for political durability if the middle becomes the relative ‘loser.’ The traditional focus in the economics literature on the political economy of climate policy and its potential distributional effects is on measures like revenue recycling (‘carbon dividends’) – especially to the poor – to counter regressivity. This compensation may be insufficient for policy stability, however, and targeted measures toward the middle class may be needed (such as a reduction in middle-income tax rates).

Second, backlash may potentially be lower when there are credible substitutes, thereby reducing the budget share of the taxed goods over time. If, for instance, the middle-class are relatively more dependent on private transport, compensatory policies aimed at making electric vehicles more affordable may reduce both the objective burden and the intensity of climate policy aversion.

Third, summary indices of tax progressivity — like the Kakwani (1977) and Suits (1977) indices — may obscure ‘middle-squeeze’ patterns. A useful complement to these summary measures would thus be to report incidence separately for bottom–middle and middle–top comparisons, and to track how polarization changes these margins over time.

References

  • Andersson, J. J., & Atkinson, G. (2025). The Progressivity of Gasoline Taxation: The Role of Income Inequality. Working Paper.
  • Autor, D. (2022).  The labor market impacts of technological change: From unbridled enthusiasm to qualified optimism to vast uncertainty. National Bureau of Economic Research.
  • Dormagen, J-Y., & Michel, L., & Reungoat, E. (2022).  United in diversity: Understanding what unites and what divides the Yellow Vests. French Politics, 20(3), 444–478.
  • Douenne, T., & Fabre, A. (2022).  Yellow vests, pessimistic beliefs, and carbon tax aversion. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 14(1): 81–110.
  • Esteban, J.-M., & Ray, D. (1994).  On the measurement of polarization. Econometrica, 62(4), 819–851.
  • Ewald, J., & Sterner, T., & Sterner, E. (2022).  Understanding the resistance to carbon taxes: Drivers and barriers among the general public and fuel-tax protesters. Resource and Energy Economics, 70.
  • Goos, M., & Manning, A., & Salomons, A. (2009).  Job polarization in Europe. American Economic Review, 99(2): 58-63.
  • Kakwani, N. C. (1977).  Measurement of tax progressivity: An international comparison. Economic Journal, 87(345), 71–80.
  • Suits, D. B. (1977).  Measurement of tax progressivity. American Economic Review, 67(4), 747–752.
  • Wolfson, M. C. (1994).  When inequalities diverge. American Economic Review, 84(2), 353–358.

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed in policy briefs and other publications are those of the authors; they do not necessarily reflect those of the FREE Network and its research institutes.

Media (de)Polarization Index | July 2024

Posted on August 2, 2024 | News

Graphic illustration of media polarization in Georgia, showing two opposing human faces made from crumpled paper representing political bias and dissimilarity in media outlets representing Media Polarization Index in July 2024.

In July 2024, the Georgia Media Polarization Index saw a notable rise due to several key political events. For instance, the United States indefinitely postponed the “Worthy Partner 2024” military exercise. Additionally, President Salome Zurabishvili returned proposed Pension Law amendments to Parliament for further review. Moreover, she appointed a non-judge member to the Supreme Council of Justice, though the court later suspended this member. However, during periods of opposition party unification and Georgian athletes’ successes at the Olympics, the index experienced a decline.

Interactive Chart: Polarity Index Only – July

Media (de)Polarization Index – 2020-2024 (as of July 2024)

What is the Georgia Media Polarization Index?

The Georgia Media Polarization Index, created by the ISET Policy Institute, serves as a powerful tool for measuring the level of political bias and polarization across Georgia’s leading media outlets. This index examines the political dissimilarities in news coverage, offering a clear, data-driven analysis of media bias in Georgia.

How the Media Polarization Index Works

The Media Polarization Index utilizes a weighted average to assess political dissimilarities between various Georgian media outlets. Media sources with higher ratings exert greater influence on the overall results, providing a more comprehensive understanding of political content distribution. This method helps in identifying where each media outlet stands on the political spectrum, allowing users to visualize the extent of media bias.

Importance and Application of the Media Polarization Index

The Georgia Media Polarization Index is crucial for researchers, policymakers, and media watchdogs focused on monitoring media bias and polarization trends. It provides valuable insights into how Georgian media outlets shape political discourse and evolve over time. The findings from the index support efforts to promote balanced media coverage, inform policy decisions, and encourage dialogue on the media’s influence in Georgia’s political landscape.

About ISET Policy Institute

ISET Policy Institute is the leading economic policy think tank in Georgia, specializing in research, training, and policy consultation in the South Caucasus region. The institute focuses on promoting good governance and fostering inclusive economic development. For more information, visit ISET Policy Institute.

To read more policy briefs published by the ISET Policy Institute, visit the Institute’s page on the FREE Network’s website.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in policy briefs, news posts, and other publications are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the FREE Network and its research institutes.