{"title":"Unveiling the Real Madrid effect: the impact of football-related acrimony on elections","authors":"Vincenzo Alfano, Salvatore Ercolano","doi":"10.1007/s40888-023-00317-8","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Contributing to the literature on so-called irrelevant events, this article aims to investigate the existence of a relation between football results and voters’ behaviour. There are indeed reasons to believe that football-related acrimony could influence electoral behaviour. More precisely, does the rank of a rival team and the distance between it and local teams influence the behaviour of the electorate? Spain seems to be the perfect case for study of this relationship, since the presence of football teams representing both local ( comunidad ) and central authorities (the Spanish Crown) allows us to study the effect of an important cleavage: the centre-periphery. This means that sport disputes may be reflected in voting preferences for ethno-regionalist parties. Following this reasoning, the better Real Madrid (the team representing the Crown) performs, and the closer the local team is to it (and thus actually competing), the stronger local supporters’ sense of acrimony and desire for payback will be. By means of a quantitative approach, using data on election results and Spanish Liga rankings, our analysis confirms the existence of a negative correlation between Real Madrid’s ranking and distance from local teams, and the share of votes in ethno-regionalist parties.","PeriodicalId":44858,"journal":{"name":"Economia Politica","volume":"204 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":2.8000,"publicationDate":"2023-10-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Economia Politica","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s40888-023-00317-8","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Abstract Contributing to the literature on so-called irrelevant events, this article aims to investigate the existence of a relation between football results and voters’ behaviour. There are indeed reasons to believe that football-related acrimony could influence electoral behaviour. More precisely, does the rank of a rival team and the distance between it and local teams influence the behaviour of the electorate? Spain seems to be the perfect case for study of this relationship, since the presence of football teams representing both local ( comunidad ) and central authorities (the Spanish Crown) allows us to study the effect of an important cleavage: the centre-periphery. This means that sport disputes may be reflected in voting preferences for ethno-regionalist parties. Following this reasoning, the better Real Madrid (the team representing the Crown) performs, and the closer the local team is to it (and thus actually competing), the stronger local supporters’ sense of acrimony and desire for payback will be. By means of a quantitative approach, using data on election results and Spanish Liga rankings, our analysis confirms the existence of a negative correlation between Real Madrid’s ranking and distance from local teams, and the share of votes in ethno-regionalist parties.
期刊介绍:
This journal publishes peer-reviewed articles that link theory and analysis in political economy, promoting a deeper understanding of economic realities and more effective courses of policy action. Established in 1984, the journal has kept pace with the times in disseminating high-quality and influential research aimed at establishing fruitful links between theories, approaches and institutions. With this relaunch (which combines Springer’s worldwide scientific scope with the Italian cultural roots of il Mulino and Fondazione Edison, whose research has been published by the two mentioned publishers for many years), the journal further reinforces its position in the European and international economic debate and scientific community. Furthermore, this move increases its pluralistic attention to the role that – at the micro, sectoral, and macro level – institutions and innovation play in the unfolding of economic change at different stages of development.