Political Behavior最新文献

Following the "bellicist" school of state formation, the external threat of war is expected to spur polity formation by centralizing military capacity (Tilly, in Coercion, Capital, and European States, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1990). It has been argued that Russia's invasion of Ukraine could provide such an impetus for centralization in the EU polity (Kelemen & McNamara, Comparative Political Studies, 55(6):18-34, 2022). We adapt the Tillian argument to the era of mass democracy, where governments need citizen support. Public support is crucial because it can constrain governments in times of crisis, especially regarding salient policies. We do not yet understand what degree of centralization the European public supports and under which conditions it can increase. We conduct an experiment where we vary both the Russian (escalation from presence in Ukraine to the invasion of Moldova or Lithuania) and the American responses (continuation of support vs. withdrawal) and see how European preferences vary for polity building in defense. We field our experiment in 7 countries (Germany, France, Italy, Portugal, Finland, Poland, and Hungary) with different sensitivities and exposures to the war in Ukraine. We propose an alternative argument to the Tillian approach based on the seminal Milwardian argument according to which polity coordination of national capacities is preferred (Milward, in The European Rescue of the Nation State, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1992). We show theoretically and empirically that external threats can actually hamper polity centralization, at least in the short term. Rather, they strengthen the subunits of a polity through coordination.

There are increasing concerns about affective polarization between political groups in the US and elsewhere. While most work explaining affective polarization focuses on a combination of social and ideological sorting, we ask whether people's personalities are associated with friendliness to their political in-group and hostility to their political out-group. We argue that the personality trait of narcissism (entitled self-importance) is an important correlate of affective polarization. We test this claim in Britain using nationally representative survey data, examining both long-standing party identities and new Brexit identities. Our findings reveal that narcissism, and particularly the 'rivalry' aspect of narcissism, is associated with both positive and negative partisanship. This potentially not only explains why some people are more susceptible to affective polarization, but also has implications for elite polarization given that narcissism is an important predictor of elite entry.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11109-024-09963-5.

Distrust is widely argued to stimulate support for political and institutional change. Yet, there is little agreement among scholars whether distrust pulls people towards rivaling decision-making models such as direct democracy, technocracy, and authoritarianism. This paper argues that political distrust is an unconditional push-factor away from the status quo (i.e., representative democracy), but that the appeal of any specific alternative decision-making models among distrusters is conditional on their political dispositions. This paper systematically tests rivaling theories on the micro-level relationship between political distrust and support for change, representative democracy, and alternative decision-making models. Crucially, we test to what extent the pull-factor of rivaling models is conditional on citizens' political efficacy and populist leaning. Moreover, we separate the effects of structurally low trust from that of dynamically declining trust by estimating Random Effects Within Between (REWB) models on three-wave panel survey data across four European countries (the UK, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Portugal). Our findings confirm that distrust unconditionally pushes people away from the status quo, but does not unconditionally pull people towards any alternative model. Rather than technocracy (mixed effects) and authoritarianism (predominantly negative effects), we find that political distrust particularly stimulates support for direct democracy. This positive effect of political distrust on support for direct democracy is particularly strong among efficacious citizens and supporters of populist parties. This aligns with the idea of dissatisfied democrats, whose distrust drives their ambition for more direct influence.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11109-024-09994-y.

Studies have shown that citizens from minoritized groups, including women and people of color, tend to feel better represented by politicians who share their identity, often translating into electoral support. Is this also the case for disabled people, one of the largest yet often ignored minority groups in our societies? Analyses of data from a conjoint survey experiment with 6,000 respondents in the UK and US show that disabled people indeed feel better represented by disabled candidates. This representational link does not require a sense of group identity and is only partly explained by perceptions of shared policy preferences. The study also reveals that non-disabled people feel better represented by non-disabled candidates. The findings highlight the relevance of disability as a political identity, bolstering calls for more disabled people in politics, and might help explain the disability gaps in political trust and participation.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11109-024-09969-z.

Democratic stability hinges on voters' commitment to democratic norms, yet there are many examples of voters' willingness to tolerate politicians who violate such principles. This article examines whether critical responses by other politicians can effectively counter the appeal of political candidates who have engaged in authoritarian behavior. We argue that costly action by fellow partisan politicians can reduce the electoral popularity of authoritarian politicians. We test this in a preregistered conjoint experiment embedded in a nationally representative survey in the United Kingdom. The results show that voters are less likely to choose politicians displaying authoritarian behavior, when they are criticized by other legislators, and that such counteractions are particularly effective when they are costly. These findings have important implications, as they show that politicians, especially co-partisans, can play an important role in reducing the appeal of authoritarian politicians.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11109-024-09971-5.

Recently, parties that are run by and for ethnic minority citizens with a migration background have become more prominent. They can be considered a manifestation of ethnic political segregation. A key example of such a party is DENK in the Netherlands. So far, the explanatory literature has focused on how programmatic considerations drives voting for these parties. Other factors, such as the role of social networks in mobilization, have received limited testing and limited exploration in more detail. Furthermore, the literature on social networks is mainly based on majority populations. To inform our understanding of the role of social networks in voting (in general but also particularly among ethnic minority communities and for ethnic minority interest parties) this paper analyzes the voting behavior for DENK focusing on the role of personal, online and religious networks. The paper uses both qualitative interviews (with bicultural youth in the third largest city of the Netherlands in 2022) and quantitative surveys (the 2021 Dutch Ethnic Minority Electoral Study). Our analysis points to the importance of religious and personal networks for voting for DENK, whereas online networks appear to be less relevant.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11109-024-09988-w.