Pub Date : 2024-02-12DOI: 10.1017/s1755773924000018
M. Debus, L. C. Wurthmann
Several studies concentrate on the representation of minority groups and the policy goals that members of these groups highlight when becoming candidates for public offices. However, we do not know much about the degree of parliamentary representation of sexual minorities and what ideological profile politicians with an LGB+ identity adopt. We aim at filling this gap by analysing the ideological stances of LGB+ candidates on key policy dimensions. Using data from the 2021 German candidate study, we find that the self-identification as LGB+ contributes significantly to adopting progressive stances on the socio-cultural dimension and more favourable positions on welfare state expansion, regardless of further important factors like party affiliation. Moreover, candidates who consider themselves LGB+ do take on significantly less traditional positions on the socio-cultural dimension compared to the position of their party, indicating that increasing descriptive representation of LGB+ individuals in parliament leads to a strengthening of more progressive voices in parliament and a stronger substantive representation of LGB+ interests.
{"title":"LGB+ identity and its implications for the policy positions of parliamentary candidates","authors":"M. Debus, L. C. Wurthmann","doi":"10.1017/s1755773924000018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1755773924000018","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Several studies concentrate on the representation of minority groups and the policy goals that members of these groups highlight when becoming candidates for public offices. However, we do not know much about the degree of parliamentary representation of sexual minorities and what ideological profile politicians with an LGB+ identity adopt. We aim at filling this gap by analysing the ideological stances of LGB+ candidates on key policy dimensions. Using data from the 2021 German candidate study, we find that the self-identification as LGB+ contributes significantly to adopting progressive stances on the socio-cultural dimension and more favourable positions on welfare state expansion, regardless of further important factors like party affiliation. Moreover, candidates who consider themselves LGB+ do take on significantly less traditional positions on the socio-cultural dimension compared to the position of their party, indicating that increasing descriptive representation of LGB+ individuals in parliament leads to a strengthening of more progressive voices in parliament and a stronger substantive representation of LGB+ interests.","PeriodicalId":47291,"journal":{"name":"European Political Science Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139783909","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-12DOI: 10.1017/s175577392400002x
Marc van de Wardt, M. Sobolewska, P. English
In recent decades, representation of ethnic minorities increased significantly across Europe, while concurrently many political parties moved to the right on multiculturalism and immigration, a seeming paradox. We explain it by arguing that often it is the same parties that move to the right and simultaneously increase representation. They use this dual strategy in an attempt to positionally converge to the median voter, where the increased minority representation acts as a reputational shield to prevent allegations of intolerance. Looking at parliaments of eight European countries between 1990 and 2015, we find that parties that shifted to the right in response to a public mood swing to the right are indeed significantly more likely to bring more ethnic minority politicians into parliament. This has important implications for the literature on descriptive representation and party platform change.
{"title":"Ethnic minority MPs as reputational shields? How Western European political parties respond to public opinion shifts on immigration policy","authors":"Marc van de Wardt, M. Sobolewska, P. English","doi":"10.1017/s175577392400002x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s175577392400002x","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In recent decades, representation of ethnic minorities increased significantly across Europe, while concurrently many political parties moved to the right on multiculturalism and immigration, a seeming paradox. We explain it by arguing that often it is the same parties that move to the right and simultaneously increase representation. They use this dual strategy in an attempt to positionally converge to the median voter, where the increased minority representation acts as a reputational shield to prevent allegations of intolerance. Looking at parliaments of eight European countries between 1990 and 2015, we find that parties that shifted to the right in response to a public mood swing to the right are indeed significantly more likely to bring more ethnic minority politicians into parliament. This has important implications for the literature on descriptive representation and party platform change.","PeriodicalId":47291,"journal":{"name":"European Political Science Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139782802","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-08DOI: 10.1017/s1755773923000383
Markus Wagner
Affective polarization, a concept that originated in the USA, has increasingly been studied in Europe’s multi-party systems. This form of polarization refers to the extent to which party supporters dislike one another – or, more technically, to the difference between the positive feelings towards the supporters of one’s own political party and the negative feelings towards the supporters of other parties. Measuring this gap in Europe’s multi-party systems requires researchers to make various important decisions relating to conceptualization and measurement. Often, our focus could instead lie on assessing partisan hostility or negative party affect, which is easier to measure. While recent research on affective polarization in Europe has already taught USA lot, both about affective polarization and about political conflict in Europe, I nevertheless suggest that research in this field faces four challenges, namely developing better measures, more sophisticated theories, clearer accounts of affective polarization’s importance and successful ways of reducing negative party affect, if this is indeed desirable.
{"title":"Affective polarization in Europe","authors":"Markus Wagner","doi":"10.1017/s1755773923000383","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1755773923000383","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Affective polarization, a concept that originated in the USA, has increasingly been studied in Europe’s multi-party systems. This form of polarization refers to the extent to which party supporters dislike one another – or, more technically, to the difference between the positive feelings towards the supporters of one’s own political party and the negative feelings towards the supporters of other parties. Measuring this gap in Europe’s multi-party systems requires researchers to make various important decisions relating to conceptualization and measurement. Often, our focus could instead lie on assessing partisan hostility or negative party affect, which is easier to measure. While recent research on affective polarization in Europe has already taught USA lot, both about affective polarization and about political conflict in Europe, I nevertheless suggest that research in this field faces four challenges, namely developing better measures, more sophisticated theories, clearer accounts of affective polarization’s importance and successful ways of reducing negative party affect, if this is indeed desirable.","PeriodicalId":47291,"journal":{"name":"European Political Science Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139851360","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-08DOI: 10.1017/s1755773923000383
Markus Wagner
Affective polarization, a concept that originated in the USA, has increasingly been studied in Europe’s multi-party systems. This form of polarization refers to the extent to which party supporters dislike one another – or, more technically, to the difference between the positive feelings towards the supporters of one’s own political party and the negative feelings towards the supporters of other parties. Measuring this gap in Europe’s multi-party systems requires researchers to make various important decisions relating to conceptualization and measurement. Often, our focus could instead lie on assessing partisan hostility or negative party affect, which is easier to measure. While recent research on affective polarization in Europe has already taught USA lot, both about affective polarization and about political conflict in Europe, I nevertheless suggest that research in this field faces four challenges, namely developing better measures, more sophisticated theories, clearer accounts of affective polarization’s importance and successful ways of reducing negative party affect, if this is indeed desirable.
{"title":"Affective polarization in Europe","authors":"Markus Wagner","doi":"10.1017/s1755773923000383","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1755773923000383","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Affective polarization, a concept that originated in the USA, has increasingly been studied in Europe’s multi-party systems. This form of polarization refers to the extent to which party supporters dislike one another – or, more technically, to the difference between the positive feelings towards the supporters of one’s own political party and the negative feelings towards the supporters of other parties. Measuring this gap in Europe’s multi-party systems requires researchers to make various important decisions relating to conceptualization and measurement. Often, our focus could instead lie on assessing partisan hostility or negative party affect, which is easier to measure. While recent research on affective polarization in Europe has already taught USA lot, both about affective polarization and about political conflict in Europe, I nevertheless suggest that research in this field faces four challenges, namely developing better measures, more sophisticated theories, clearer accounts of affective polarization’s importance and successful ways of reducing negative party affect, if this is indeed desirable.","PeriodicalId":47291,"journal":{"name":"European Political Science Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139791581","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-25DOI: 10.1017/s175577392300036x
Anna Kern, Sofie Marien, L. Muradova
How do citizens react to repeated losses in politics? This paper argues that experiencing accumulated losses creates strong incentives to externalize responsibility for these losses to the decision-making procedure, which can, in turn, erode legitimacy perceptions among the public. Using a survey experiment (N = 2,146) simulating accumulated losses in a series of direct votes among Irish citizens, we find that decision acceptance and the perceived legitimacy of the decision-making procedure diminish with every loss. Three accumulated losses depress the perceived legitimacy of the political system. These effects are mediated by procedural fairness perceptions, suggesting that even when democratic procedures are used, accumulated losses can induce a belief that the process and system are rigged.
{"title":"The effect of accumulated losses on perceptions of legitimacy","authors":"Anna Kern, Sofie Marien, L. Muradova","doi":"10.1017/s175577392300036x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s175577392300036x","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 How do citizens react to repeated losses in politics? This paper argues that experiencing accumulated losses creates strong incentives to externalize responsibility for these losses to the decision-making procedure, which can, in turn, erode legitimacy perceptions among the public. Using a survey experiment (N = 2,146) simulating accumulated losses in a series of direct votes among Irish citizens, we find that decision acceptance and the perceived legitimacy of the decision-making procedure diminish with every loss. Three accumulated losses depress the perceived legitimacy of the political system. These effects are mediated by procedural fairness perceptions, suggesting that even when democratic procedures are used, accumulated losses can induce a belief that the process and system are rigged.","PeriodicalId":47291,"journal":{"name":"European Political Science Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139598619","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-17DOI: 10.1017/s1755773923000395
Daniel Kübler, M. Strebel, Frank Marcinkowski
The rise of populism in Western Europe is often portrayed as a reaction to globalisation and supra-national integration processes. However, the domestic-international divide is only one aspect of the scalar organisation of government. In this article, we explore the relationship between populist attitudes and orientations towards state scales more generally. Drawing on a representative survey of 4033 citizens in Britain, France, Germany and Switzerland, we show that populist attitudes are linked to preferences for those state territories viewed as ‘closer to the people’ not only in a metaphorical but also in a scalar sense. The results suggest that the rise of populism should not only be considered a response to a crisis of party government in a context of globalisation but also as a response to a crisis of national statehood.
{"title":"Populism and the scales of statehood. Localism and populist attitudes in Western Europe","authors":"Daniel Kübler, M. Strebel, Frank Marcinkowski","doi":"10.1017/s1755773923000395","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1755773923000395","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The rise of populism in Western Europe is often portrayed as a reaction to globalisation and supra-national integration processes. However, the domestic-international divide is only one aspect of the scalar organisation of government. In this article, we explore the relationship between populist attitudes and orientations towards state scales more generally. Drawing on a representative survey of 4033 citizens in Britain, France, Germany and Switzerland, we show that populist attitudes are linked to preferences for those state territories viewed as ‘closer to the people’ not only in a metaphorical but also in a scalar sense. The results suggest that the rise of populism should not only be considered a response to a crisis of party government in a context of globalisation but also as a response to a crisis of national statehood.","PeriodicalId":47291,"journal":{"name":"European Political Science Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139527097","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-05DOI: 10.1017/s1755773923000371
Udi Sommer, Idan Franco
Expectations about ethnic solidarity notwithstanding, Latino support for Donald Trump grew between the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. Despite his anti-immigration positions and policies, the number of votes cast for Trump unexpectedly increased among members of the group most strongly associated with the issue of immigration. Latinos showed considerably more variance in voting behavior than what would be expected given accounts focused mainly on their ethnic solidarity. We propose a counterintuitive explanation for this trend: due to the activation of dormant political dispositions, it is the very anti-immigration attitudes characterizing Trump that account for his ascendence among Latino voters. Latinos voting for Trump did so because of his anti-immigration positions and not despite those positions. Our findings motivate a reevaluation of standard understandings of the role of minorities in American politics writ large and in American elections more specifically. Furthermore, as anti-immigration Latinos reside disproportionately more in certain swing states, we find them to be a pivotal political force in determining election outcomes, though in unexpected ways.
{"title":"Solidarity in question: activation of dormant political dispositions and Latino support for Trump in 2020","authors":"Udi Sommer, Idan Franco","doi":"10.1017/s1755773923000371","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1755773923000371","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Expectations about ethnic solidarity notwithstanding, Latino support for Donald Trump grew between the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. Despite his anti-immigration positions and policies, the number of votes cast for Trump unexpectedly increased among members of the group most strongly associated with the issue of immigration. Latinos showed considerably more variance in voting behavior than what would be expected given accounts focused mainly on their ethnic solidarity. We propose a counterintuitive explanation for this trend: due to the activation of dormant political dispositions, it is the very anti-immigration attitudes characterizing Trump that account for his ascendence among Latino voters. Latinos voting for Trump did so because of his anti-immigration positions and not despite those positions. Our findings motivate a reevaluation of standard understandings of the role of minorities in American politics writ large and in American elections more specifically. Furthermore, as anti-immigration Latinos reside disproportionately more in certain swing states, we find them to be a pivotal political force in determining election outcomes, though in unexpected ways.","PeriodicalId":47291,"journal":{"name":"European Political Science Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139381532","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-05DOI: 10.1017/s1755773923000358
R. Mendonça, Lucas Henrique Nigri Veloso, Bruno Dias Magalhães, F. Motta
This paper advocates a move beyond the systemic approach in the field of Deliberative Democracy. It argues that the notion of deliberative ecology can deliver the necessary conceptual elements that deliberative democrats seek in deliberative systems without some of the problems they either overlook or embrace. To advocate the advantages of an ecological perspective to deliberation, the article focuses on six axes of comparison: (i) performances of actants (instead of functions of arenas and players); (ii) articulations and translations (instead of transmission); (iii) vulnerabilities (instead of pathologies and dysfunctions); (iv) practice (instead of institutionally-oriented design); (v) diverse temporalities (instead of linear temporality) and; (vi) hologram-based analysis (instead of systemic analysis). In a nutshell, the article claims that the ecological approach to deliberation has the advantage of conceptualizing an ever-changing web of relations of interdependency, which connects diverse entities that are either relevant to a public discussion or that hinder its enactment.
{"title":"Deliberative ecologies: a relational critique of deliberative systems","authors":"R. Mendonça, Lucas Henrique Nigri Veloso, Bruno Dias Magalhães, F. Motta","doi":"10.1017/s1755773923000358","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1755773923000358","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper advocates a move beyond the systemic approach in the field of Deliberative Democracy. It argues that the notion of deliberative ecology can deliver the necessary conceptual elements that deliberative democrats seek in deliberative systems without some of the problems they either overlook or embrace. To advocate the advantages of an ecological perspective to deliberation, the article focuses on six axes of comparison: (i) performances of actants (instead of functions of arenas and players); (ii) articulations and translations (instead of transmission); (iii) vulnerabilities (instead of pathologies and dysfunctions); (iv) practice (instead of institutionally-oriented design); (v) diverse temporalities (instead of linear temporality) and; (vi) hologram-based analysis (instead of systemic analysis). In a nutshell, the article claims that the ecological approach to deliberation has the advantage of conceptualizing an ever-changing web of relations of interdependency, which connects diverse entities that are either relevant to a public discussion or that hinder its enactment.","PeriodicalId":47291,"journal":{"name":"European Political Science Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139383671","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-05DOI: 10.1017/s1755773923000401
Matteo C. M. Casiraghi, L. Curini, N. Maggini, Alessandro Nai
The extent in which voters from different ideological viewpoints support state interventions to curb crises remains an outstanding conundrum, marred by conflicting evidence. In this article, we test two possible ways out from such puzzle. The role of ideology to explain support for state interventions, we argue, could be (i) conditional upon the ideological nature of the crisis itself (e.g., whether the crisis relates to conservation vs. post-materialist values), or (ii) unfolding indirectly, by moderating the role played by political trust. We present evidence from a conjoint experiment fielded in 2022 on a representative sample of 1,000 Italian citizens, in which respondents were asked whether they support specific governmental interventions to curb a crisis, described under different conditions (e.g., type of crisis, severity). Our results show that the type of crisis matters marginally – right-wing respondents were more likely to support state interventions only in the case of terrorism. More fundamentally, political trust affects the probability to support state interventions, but only for right-wing citizens.
不同意识形态观点的选民在多大程度上支持国家干预以遏制危机，这仍然是一个存在矛盾证据的突出难题。在这篇文章中，我们检验了解决这一难题的两种可能途径。我们认为，意识形态在解释对国家干预的支持方面所起的作用可能是：(i) 以危机本身的意识形态性质为条件（例如，危机是否与节约型价值观和后物质主义价值观有关），或者 (ii) 通过调节政治信任所起的作用而间接展开。我们在 2022 年对具有代表性的 1000 个意大利公民样本进行了联合实验，询问受访者是否支持政府在不同条件（如危机类型、严重程度）下为遏制危机而采取的特定干预措施。我们的结果表明，危机类型的影响微乎其微--只有在恐怖主义的情况下，右翼受访者才更有可能支持国家干预。更重要的是，政治信任会影响支持国家干预的概率，但这只针对右翼公民。
{"title":"Who looks up to the Leviathan? Ideology, political trust, and support for restrictive state interventions in times of crisis","authors":"Matteo C. M. Casiraghi, L. Curini, N. Maggini, Alessandro Nai","doi":"10.1017/s1755773923000401","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1755773923000401","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The extent in which voters from different ideological viewpoints support state interventions to curb crises remains an outstanding conundrum, marred by conflicting evidence. In this article, we test two possible ways out from such puzzle. The role of ideology to explain support for state interventions, we argue, could be (i) conditional upon the ideological nature of the crisis itself (e.g., whether the crisis relates to conservation vs. post-materialist values), or (ii) unfolding indirectly, by moderating the role played by political trust. We present evidence from a conjoint experiment fielded in 2022 on a representative sample of 1,000 Italian citizens, in which respondents were asked whether they support specific governmental interventions to curb a crisis, described under different conditions (e.g., type of crisis, severity). Our results show that the type of crisis matters marginally – right-wing respondents were more likely to support state interventions only in the case of terrorism. More fundamentally, political trust affects the probability to support state interventions, but only for right-wing citizens.","PeriodicalId":47291,"journal":{"name":"European Political Science Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2024-01-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139384315","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-04DOI: 10.1017/s1755773923000346
Eloisa Harris, Matthias Enggist
In Western European welfare states, research shows that support for welfare chauvinism, or the notion that welfare benefits for immigrants should be restricted, is highest among white, blue-collar working-class voters. On the other hand, higher-educated, middle-class voters are more likely to reject welfare chauvinism and support the inclusion of immigrants into the welfare state. For social democratic parties, this might pose an electoral dilemma between generous welfare states and open borders: They rely on both middle- and working-class constituencies and are ideologically tied both to a universal welfare state and the protection of (national) workers. To what extent does such an electoral dilemma between classes exist for social democratic parties? How do social democratic parties solve this dilemma when in government? In this paper, we postulate that a class divide around welfare chauvinism exists within the electorate for social democratic parties and that these parties’ policies in government reflect these divides: If the social democratic electorate has a high share of working-class voters, they should act more welfare chauvinist than if their electorate is mostly middle class. We test these hypotheses by combining survey and macro-level policy data in 14 Western European countries from 1980 to 2018. We find consistent evidence of the existence of a working-class/middle-class divide regarding welfare chauvinism, even within social democratic electorates. On the macro-level, we find partial evidence that social democratic parties in power respond to the class demands of their electorate: They are less welfare chauvinist when they have a higher proportion of middle-class voters, whereas their working-class vote share does not significantly condition their policies at all, contrary to assumptions in the literature. We therefore conclude that as social democratic parties become parties of the middle classes, the likelihood that they will retrench immigrant welfare rights reduces.
{"title":"The micro-foundations of social democratic welfare chauvinism and inclusion: class demand and policy reforms in Western Europe, 1980−2018","authors":"Eloisa Harris, Matthias Enggist","doi":"10.1017/s1755773923000346","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s1755773923000346","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 In Western European welfare states, research shows that support for welfare chauvinism, or the notion that welfare benefits for immigrants should be restricted, is highest among white, blue-collar working-class voters. On the other hand, higher-educated, middle-class voters are more likely to reject welfare chauvinism and support the inclusion of immigrants into the welfare state. For social democratic parties, this might pose an electoral dilemma between generous welfare states and open borders: They rely on both middle- and working-class constituencies and are ideologically tied both to a universal welfare state and the protection of (national) workers. To what extent does such an electoral dilemma between classes exist for social democratic parties? How do social democratic parties solve this dilemma when in government? In this paper, we postulate that a class divide around welfare chauvinism exists within the electorate for social democratic parties and that these parties’ policies in government reflect these divides: If the social democratic electorate has a high share of working-class voters, they should act more welfare chauvinist than if their electorate is mostly middle class. We test these hypotheses by combining survey and macro-level policy data in 14 Western European countries from 1980 to 2018. We find consistent evidence of the existence of a working-class/middle-class divide regarding welfare chauvinism, even within social democratic electorates. On the macro-level, we find partial evidence that social democratic parties in power respond to the class demands of their electorate: They are less welfare chauvinist when they have a higher proportion of middle-class voters, whereas their working-class vote share does not significantly condition their policies at all, contrary to assumptions in the literature. We therefore conclude that as social democratic parties become parties of the middle classes, the likelihood that they will retrench immigrant welfare rights reduces.","PeriodicalId":47291,"journal":{"name":"European Political Science Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.2,"publicationDate":"2023-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138603655","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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