Pub Date : 2025-07-07DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102957
Nico Sonntag
The resurgence of wolves in Germany has sparked intense debate, particularly in rural areas where wolf attacks on livestock are frequent. Prior research has linked wolf attacks to a rise in support for the far-right AfD party and the corresponding decline in Green Party votes. This note challenges such conclusions, highlighting significant methodological issues in the original difference-in-differences design. The geographic clustering of wolf attacks in East Germany aligns with other pre-existing political divides, complicating causal attribution. The analysis reveals pre-treatment voting trends that predict the probability of wolf attacks. Splitting data by East and West Germany or including diverging regional trends in the regression models nullifies or reverses most previously reported effects. This study underscores the complexities of using panel data in spatially and temporally heterogeneous contexts.
{"title":"The East in wolf’s clothing. Wolf attacks correlate with but do not cause far-right voting","authors":"Nico Sonntag","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102957","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102957","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The resurgence of wolves in Germany has sparked intense debate, particularly in rural areas where wolf attacks on livestock are frequent. Prior research has linked wolf attacks to a rise in support for the far-right AfD party and the corresponding decline in Green Party votes. This note challenges such conclusions, highlighting significant methodological issues in the original difference-in-differences design. The geographic clustering of wolf attacks in East Germany aligns with other pre-existing political divides, complicating causal attribution. The analysis reveals pre-treatment voting trends that predict the probability of wolf attacks. Splitting data by East and West Germany or including diverging regional trends in the regression models nullifies or reverses most previously reported effects. This study underscores the complexities of using panel data in spatially and temporally heterogeneous contexts.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 102957"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144572486","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-05DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102965
Assaf Shmuel
The rise of populist leaders has been a notable trend in recent years, not just in developing democracies but in developed ones as well. The phenomenon has attracted wide scholarly interest, studying the effect of populist leaders on various fields of life, including the economy. This paper sheds light on an additional aspect of populist leaders' actions: their utilization of the political budget cycle (PBC). The PBC is a well-known hypothesis claiming the existence of an economic cycle which revolves around national elections, caused by leaders who manipulate the economy to create favourable conditions towards re-election. Although the existence of PBCs has been empirically established, particularly in developing democracies, its link to populism remains to be empirically explored. In this paper we claim that populist leaders make an increased use of the PBC in comparison to other leaders. We substantiate this hypothesis through a comprehensive statistical analysis utilizing a recently released dataset encompassing decades of populist leaders. Our findings reveal robust empirical support for the hypothesis. We find that populist leaders play a major role in driving political budget cycles across different democratic systems, with particularly strong effects in weaker democracies. These findings carry significant implications given the rising prevalence of populist leaders.
{"title":"Populist leaders and the political budget cycle","authors":"Assaf Shmuel","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102965","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102965","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The rise of populist leaders has been a notable trend in recent years, not just in developing democracies but in developed ones as well. The phenomenon has attracted wide scholarly interest, studying the effect of populist leaders on various fields of life, including the economy. This paper sheds light on an additional aspect of populist leaders' actions: their utilization of the political budget cycle (PBC). The PBC is a well-known hypothesis claiming the existence of an economic cycle which revolves around national elections, caused by leaders who manipulate the economy to create favourable conditions towards re-election. Although the existence of PBCs has been empirically established, particularly in developing democracies, its link to populism remains to be empirically explored. In this paper we claim that populist leaders make an increased use of the PBC in comparison to other leaders. We substantiate this hypothesis through a comprehensive statistical analysis utilizing a recently released dataset encompassing decades of populist leaders. Our findings reveal robust empirical support for the hypothesis. We find that populist leaders play a major role in driving political budget cycles across different democratic systems, with particularly strong effects in weaker democracies. These findings carry significant implications given the rising prevalence of populist leaders.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 102965"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144563498","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-04DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102954
Stine Hesstvedt, Jo Saglie
In recent years, the political divide between urban and rural dwellers seems to have increased. Current literature has described the rise of a green, progressive and left-leaning urban electorate and a nationalist and conservative rural population. However, research usually lacks historical data on these developments outside of majoritarian systems. We provide new insights into the urban-rural divide's evolution in a European multi-party welfare state by analysing more than four decades of data from Norway and asking: How has the urban-rural divide over political issues evolved from a long-term perspective? Using unique election survey data, we analyse how both attitudes and most important issues among rural and urban voters in Norway have changed between 1977 and 2021. We also assess whether urban-rural differences are driven by sociodemographic change. Our results indicate both stability and change. On one hand, we find attitude polarisation in Norway on some issues: Divisions over environmental policy have increased, as the urban population displays more progressive attitudes than rural citizens over time. Rural citizens have become more concerned with centre and periphery issues. However, in other areas, we find stability and a relatively low degree of polarisation. For example, the rural population in Norway has become more similar to urban citizens regarding moral and religious issues. Furthermore, rural citizens have not become more right-leaning on economic questions, which has been a finding in more adversarial systems.
{"title":"The urban-rural cleavage: Analysing more than 40 years of Norwegian survey data","authors":"Stine Hesstvedt, Jo Saglie","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102954","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102954","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In recent years, the political divide between urban and rural dwellers seems to have increased. Current literature has described the rise of a green, progressive and left-leaning urban electorate and a nationalist and conservative rural population. However, research usually lacks historical data on these developments outside of majoritarian systems. We provide new insights into the urban-rural divide's evolution in a European multi-party welfare state by analysing more than four decades of data from Norway and asking: How has the urban-rural divide over political issues evolved from a long-term perspective? Using unique election survey data, we analyse how both attitudes and most important issues among rural and urban voters in Norway have changed between 1977 and 2021. We also assess whether urban-rural differences are driven by sociodemographic change. Our results indicate both stability and change. On one hand, we find attitude polarisation in Norway on some issues: Divisions over environmental policy have increased, as the urban population displays more progressive attitudes than rural citizens over time. Rural citizens have become more concerned with centre and periphery issues. However, in other areas, we find stability and a relatively low degree of polarisation. For example, the rural population in Norway has become more similar to urban citizens regarding moral and religious issues. Furthermore, rural citizens have not become more right-leaning on economic questions, which has been a finding in more adversarial systems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 102954"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144548771","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-04DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102935
Sofia Breitenstein , Toni Rodon , Guillem Riambau , Andreu Rodilla
The resurgence of the rural–urban divide as a factor shaping political attitudes has gained increasing attention in both public and academic discourse. Although often framed in terms of social identities, less is known about whether people actually express rural or urban identities in their own terms. This study investigates whether rural and urban identities exist independently of other identities such as class or ideology, and how they shape perceptions of in-groups and out-groups. Drawing on open-ended survey responses from a representative sample in Spain – a context where the rural–urban divide has gained political relevance – we use a novel text analysis approach to examine how individuals describe the groups they identify with. Findings show that rural–urban identities surface only marginally without explicit prompting, while identities tied to age, ideology, and education are more salient. When primed, some stereotypical traits emerge: rural communities are associated with nature and a relaxed lifestyle, while urban ones are linked to stress and individualism. A more uniform and stereotyped view of rural areas also appears across both rural and urban respondents.
{"title":"Unpacking the rural–urban divide: Identities and stereotypes","authors":"Sofia Breitenstein , Toni Rodon , Guillem Riambau , Andreu Rodilla","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102935","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102935","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The resurgence of the rural–urban divide as a factor shaping political attitudes has gained increasing attention in both public and academic discourse. Although often framed in terms of social identities, less is known about whether people actually express rural or urban identities in their own terms. This study investigates whether rural and urban identities exist independently of other identities such as class or ideology, and how they shape perceptions of in-groups and out-groups. Drawing on open-ended survey responses from a representative sample in Spain – a context where the rural–urban divide has gained political relevance – we use a novel text analysis approach to examine how individuals describe the groups they identify with. Findings show that rural–urban identities surface only marginally without explicit prompting, while identities tied to age, ideology, and education are more salient. When primed, some stereotypical traits emerge: rural communities are associated with nature and a relaxed lifestyle, while urban ones are linked to stress and individualism. A more uniform and stereotyped view of rural areas also appears across both rural and urban respondents.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 102935"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144563497","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-03DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102956
Hikaru Nukui , Hirofumi Miwa , Yoshikuni Ono
Incumbents often serve as critical gatekeepers in the recruitment of new candidates and may even designate their successors upon retirement. Some existing research indicates that the gender of gatekeepers is likely to affect the recruitment of female candidates, a dynamic of particular concern in countries like Japan, where political offices are predominantly held by men. However, it remains unclear whether the underrepresentation of women stems from male incumbents actively discriminating against female candidates during the recruitment process. Through a survey experiment involving over 7000 elected local politicians in Japan, we examine gender biases in the successor selection process and attitudes toward female candidacy. Contrary to our expectations, the results reveal that local politicians, irrespective of their own gender, are more inclined to nominate women over men as their successors. They also believe that these female candidates would receive support from their local constituencies. These findings suggest that the selection practices of incumbents may not significantly contribute to the underrepresentation of women in politics.
{"title":"Preferences for female successors: Evidence from a survey experiment among Japanese local politicians","authors":"Hikaru Nukui , Hirofumi Miwa , Yoshikuni Ono","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102956","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102956","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Incumbents often serve as critical gatekeepers in the recruitment of new candidates and may even designate their successors upon retirement. Some existing research indicates that the gender of gatekeepers is likely to affect the recruitment of female candidates, a dynamic of particular concern in countries like Japan, where political offices are predominantly held by men. However, it remains unclear whether the underrepresentation of women stems from male incumbents actively discriminating against female candidates during the recruitment process. Through a survey experiment involving over 7000 elected local politicians in Japan, we examine gender biases in the successor selection process and attitudes toward female candidacy. Contrary to our expectations, the results reveal that local politicians, irrespective of their own gender, are more inclined to nominate women over men as their successors. They also believe that these female candidates would receive support from their local constituencies. These findings suggest that the selection practices of incumbents may not significantly contribute to the underrepresentation of women in politics.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 102956"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144535187","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-02DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102955
Øyvind Stiansen , Haakon Gjerløw , Lise Rakner
Elections are increasingly judicialized in many multiparty regimes. The ability to challenge flawed elections in independent courts can be crucial for democratization, may deter irregularities, and may prevent post-election violence. However, litigating against the elections of opposition candidates can also enable ruling parties to consolidate control following narrow electoral victories. In executive-dominated systems, such a strategy may be facilitated by how uneven access to resources may make litigation particularly attractive for ruling-party candidates and by how judges may feel pressured to nullify opposition victories, triggering by-elections that ruling parties are likely to win. We investigate these expectations using a novel dataset of electoral petitions from the 2011, 2016, and 2021 Zambian elections. We show that losing candidates from the party gaining or retaining control over the executive were more likely to litigate against their losses. However, we find no evidence that judges tended to favor these candidates relative to other petitioners.
{"title":"The politics of litigating and adjudicating electoral disputes: Evidence from Zambia","authors":"Øyvind Stiansen , Haakon Gjerløw , Lise Rakner","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102955","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102955","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Elections are increasingly judicialized in many multiparty regimes. The ability to challenge flawed elections in independent courts can be crucial for democratization, may deter irregularities, and may prevent post-election violence. However, litigating against the elections of opposition candidates can also enable ruling parties to consolidate control following narrow electoral victories. In executive-dominated systems, such a strategy may be facilitated by how uneven access to resources may make litigation particularly attractive for ruling-party candidates and by how judges may feel pressured to nullify opposition victories, triggering by-elections that ruling parties are likely to win. We investigate these expectations using a novel dataset of electoral petitions from the 2011, 2016, and 2021 Zambian elections. We show that losing candidates from the party gaining or retaining control over the executive were more likely to litigate against their losses. However, we find no evidence that judges tended to favor these candidates relative to other petitioners.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 102955"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144524267","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-02DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102962
Guillem Rico, Rubén García del Horno, Enrique Hernández
Recent research shows a growing rural-urban divide in political attitudes and behavior, which has given currency to expressions like “places that don't matter” and “rural resentment”. Although these accounts point to a crisis of political representation, the topic has hardly been approached from the theories and methods of the unequal representation literature. Against this backdrop, this paper provides a systematic assessment of biases in place-related descriptive representation in 28 European countries. Using data on legislator biographies and geographic and demographic statistics, we first examine the relative presence of legislators with urban and rural backgrounds in national parliaments, and then assess the extent to which parliamentary composition, in terms of members' birthplaces, reflects the broader demographic makeup of country populations. Next, we explore how variation in the territorial background of legislators relates to country, party, and individual-level factors. Results show that rural areas tend to be underrepresented in national parliaments when compared to urban ones. Differences in the descriptive representation of rural areas vary in consistent ways with urbanization levels, electoral system features, parties' characteristic constituencies, territorial embeddedness and ideological orientation, and legislator sociodemographics. The study's results underscore the need for greater scholarly attention to the representation of place—particularly rural areas—to better understand its potential consequences on symbolic marginalization, feelings of exclusion, and a lack of policies addressing their needs, all of which may fuel political polarization and distrust in democratic institutions.
{"title":"Rural representation in Europe: The presence of place in national parliaments","authors":"Guillem Rico, Rubén García del Horno, Enrique Hernández","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102962","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102962","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Recent research shows a growing rural-urban divide in political attitudes and behavior, which has given currency to expressions like “places that don't matter” and “rural resentment”. Although these accounts point to a crisis of political representation, the topic has hardly been approached from the theories and methods of the unequal representation literature. Against this backdrop, this paper provides a systematic assessment of biases in place-related descriptive representation in 28 European countries. Using data on legislator biographies and geographic and demographic statistics, we first examine the relative presence of legislators with urban and rural backgrounds in national parliaments, and then assess the extent to which parliamentary composition, in terms of members' birthplaces, reflects the broader demographic makeup of country populations. Next, we explore how variation in the territorial background of legislators relates to country, party, and individual-level factors. Results show that rural areas tend to be underrepresented in national parliaments when compared to urban ones. Differences in the descriptive representation of rural areas vary in consistent ways with urbanization levels, electoral system features, parties' characteristic constituencies, territorial embeddedness and ideological orientation, and legislator sociodemographics. The study's results underscore the need for greater scholarly attention to the representation of place—particularly rural areas—to better understand its potential consequences on symbolic marginalization, feelings of exclusion, and a lack of policies addressing their needs, all of which may fuel political polarization and distrust in democratic institutions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 102962"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144524266","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-01DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102958
Marcel Roman , Benjamin Newman
Prior research documents the importance of race, prejudice, and partisanship in shaping mass position-taking on police reform; however, little-to-no research explores self-interest as a potentially operative factor—especially for reforms affecting police budgets and service capacity. We identify a form of self-interest theoretically present for voters when considering “defund the police” proposals and utilize as a test case a police defunding ballot initiative in Los Angeles County with a rare feature rendering it uniquely well-suited for detecting voter self-interest: it targeted the county sheriff's department and was voted on by county residents under and not under this agency's jurisdiction. Using a spatial discontinuity design leveraging contiguous election precincts along different sides of the sheriff department's jurisdictional boundaries, we find little-to-no evidence that voters sought to protect the budget—and thus service capacity—of their public safety provider. Instead, we find evidence that voting was largely driven by anti-minority orientations.
{"title":"Self-interest and voter support for defund the police","authors":"Marcel Roman , Benjamin Newman","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102958","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102958","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Prior research documents the importance of race, prejudice, and partisanship in shaping mass position-taking on police reform; however, little-to-no research explores self-interest as a potentially operative factor—especially for reforms affecting police budgets and service capacity. We identify a form of self-interest theoretically present for voters when considering “defund the police” proposals and utilize as a test case a police defunding ballot initiative in Los Angeles County with a rare feature rendering it uniquely well-suited for detecting voter self-interest: it targeted the county sheriff's department and was voted on by county residents under and <em>not under</em> this agency's jurisdiction. Using a spatial discontinuity design leveraging contiguous election precincts along different sides of the sheriff department's jurisdictional boundaries, we find little-to-no evidence that voters sought to protect the budget—and thus service capacity—of their public safety provider. Instead, we find evidence that voting was largely driven by anti-minority orientations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 102958"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144518437","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-28DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102963
Twan Huijsmans, Wouter van der Brug
{"title":"Place-based resentment and party support in multiparty systems: A study of three consecutive elections in the Netherlands","authors":"Twan Huijsmans, Wouter van der Brug","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102963","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102963","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 102963"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144501920","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-06-28DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102961
Braeden Davis , Yu-Shiuan Huang
Do monarchs unify? This article is the first to test whether monarchs promote unity by increasing national pride and decreasing political animus (affective polarization). Using two waves of an original survey experiment on thousands of British participants, we show that priming respondents to think favorably of the monarchy increased feelings of national pride and indirectly reduced affective polarization. Surprisingly however, this effect is only found when measuring affective polarization using social distance and not feeling thermometer items. This suggests that the monarchy has the capacity to reduce feelings of hostility towards fellow countrymen but may not reduce hostility towards political parties. In exploratory analyses we also found treatment increased respondents’ conviction that Scotland and Northern Ireland should remain part of the UK, also mediated by national pride. Our results recommend monarchies in democracies as a promising field for future research by political scientists.
{"title":"Happy and glorious? The sometimes-unifying effects of the British monarchy","authors":"Braeden Davis , Yu-Shiuan Huang","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102961","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102961","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Do monarchs unify? This article is the first to test whether monarchs promote unity by increasing national pride and decreasing political animus (affective polarization). Using two waves of an original survey experiment on thousands of British participants, we show that priming respondents to think favorably of the monarchy increased feelings of national pride and indirectly reduced affective polarization. Surprisingly however, this effect is only found when measuring affective polarization using social distance and not feeling thermometer items. This suggests that the monarchy has the capacity to reduce feelings of hostility towards fellow countrymen but may not reduce hostility towards political parties. In exploratory analyses we also found treatment increased respondents’ conviction that Scotland and Northern Ireland should remain part of the UK, also mediated by national pride. Our results recommend monarchies in democracies as a promising field for future research by political scientists.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 102961"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144510975","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"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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