Cultural Backlash? Trends in Opinion Polarisation between Educational Groups in Europe

Norris and Inglehart's (2019) cultural backlash theory has become popular for understanding right-wing backlash. The theory views backlash as a reaction from segments of the population who feel alienated by advancing societal liberalization. We test this core claim of the theory by investigating whether highly educated individuals increasingly adopted more liberal attitudes toward immigrants, LGTBIQ+ rights, and gender roles over recent decades across European countries, and whether this has led to an increasing liberalization gap to lower educated segments of the population. Using data from the European Values Study (1980–2020) and the European Social Survey (2001–2021) we find that liberalization dynamics vary significantly across countries and attitudinal indicators. Growing liberalization gaps are most common in Central and Eastern European countries, particularly in a distinct and pronounced way concerning LGTBIQ+ attitudes. Western Europe shows fewer gaps, mostly in isolated attitudes on immigration and gender roles. We conclude that cultural backlash theory is most applicable to Central and Eastern Europe (and to some extent in Southern Europe). In most countries, explaining backlash through this lens requires acknowledging that growing liberalization gaps occur on singular attitudes rather than being a widespread phenomenon.