In Love With Hatred: Rethinking the Role Hatred Plays in Shaping Political Behavior

This paper addresses the problem of isolating and measuring the influence of hatred on political behavior by analyzing a nationwide panel study conducted during the 2006 election campaign in Israel. We argue that collective hatred is composed of 2 distinct emotional aspects: chronic and immediate. The core of this paper is an analysis of the influence of these 2 types of group-based hatred on 3 aspects of political behavior: political learning, party identification stability, and partisan support. The results indicate that both aspects of collective hatred-chronic and immediate-are incongruously crucial for the understanding of political outcomes, particularly political learning. We discuss the broader implications of these findings in assessing the impact of group-based hatred on the political process.