Work

Political polarization in Portugal-measuring affective polarization using large language models

Year: 2025

Type: dissertation

Abstract: Political polarization has become a growing concern in Portugal as new parties reshape parliamentary competition. This thesis examines how affective polarization in the Portuguese parliament evolves over time and how it aligns with the rise and consolidation of the radical right party Chega. Using the ParlaMint-PT corpus (2015–2024), outgroup-directed hostility in parliamentary interventions is measured with a calibrated ensemble combining a fine-tuned XLM-RoBERTa classifier and an instruction-based GPT-5-Nano model. The findings indicate stable levels before 2019, a decline around 2020–2021, and a sharp increase from 2022 onward, consistent with a delayed association with Chega’s consolidation.

Source: Portuguese National Funding Agency for Science, Research and Technology (RCAAP Project by FCT)

Author: Gerth, Simon

Language: English

Topic: Sentiment Analysis and Opinion Mining

Subfield: Artificial Intelligence

Field: Computer Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Peace, justice, and strong institutions

Open Access status: green

Funder: Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia

Awards: G3434864815, G388523895, Nova School of Business and Economics - Unidade de Investigação

OpenAlex ID: W7198263598

Cites: 18

Cited by:

Related to: 10