Land of My Fathers? Economic Development, Ethnic Division and Ethnic National Identity in 32 Countries

We investigate the reasons why some people, and some countries, place greater or lesser emphasis on the idea that membership of a nation is tied to ancestry. We test the influence of two key factors - economic development and ethnic division. Economic development is strongly associated with support for the ancestry criterion of national membership. Those who are more economically secure, who grew up in wealthier nations, or live in a wealthier nation currently, are less likely to emphasise ancestry as an important factor in national identity. Those who have grown up since mass immigration to a country begun are also less likely to emphasise ancestry. However, we find no evidence that historical conditions are correlated with current national identity beliefs.National Identity, Comparative, Survey, Generational Change

Right-wing citizens in right-wing countries dislike the EU, but right-wing citizens in left-wing countries support European integration

How does the economic context within a country affect support for the European Union? John Garry and James Tilley present results of a study on the way in which the views of right-wing and left-wing citizens are shaped by the economic context within EU states. The findings show that those with right-wing opinions tend to have lower support for European integration if they already live in a broadly right-wing country; however right-wing citizens in left-wing countries are more supportive of the EU. This offers one explanation for why cooperation between political parties across Europe has proven difficult: even when parties share the same ideological principles, they may have varied views on future integration depending on the economic conditions within their own country

While voters might blame the EU for policy failures, it is extremely difficult for them to effectively hold it to account

European integration necessitates that there is a division of competences between the national and European levels, but how do voters assign responsibility when things go wrong? Sara Hobolt and James Tilley argue that while plenty of voters hold the EU responsible for bad outcomes, it is difficult for them to translate this blame into punishment for political actors at the ballot box. They illustrate that perceptions of responsibility are not only inaccurate, dependent as they are on poor information and existing prejudices, but that the lack of both a clear government at the EU level and a shared European vantage point dooms EU level governance to be unaccountable. This has resulted in increasing distrust of the EU institutions

Misconduct by voters' own representatives does not affect voters' generalized political trust

One reason given for declining levels of trust in politicians and institutions is the incidence of scandals involving voters’ representatives. Politicians implicated in scandals, especially financial scandals, typically see their constituents’ support for them decrease. It has been suggested that these specific negative judgements about a representative’s misconduct spill over into constituents’ diffuse political trust in the system as a whole. We argue that the 2009 Parliamentary expenses scandal in the United Kingdom is the strongest yet-studied test of these scandal spillover effects in a non-experimental context. Yet, using a multilevel analysis of survey and representative implication data, we find no evidence for these effects. This is despite voters being aware of their MP’s scandal implication and this awareness affecting voters’ support for their own MP. We conclude that voters’ judgements about their constituency representatives are unlikely to affect their diffuse political trust

The polarizing effect of partisan echo chambers

We are witnessing increasing partisan polarization across the world. It is often argued that partisan ‘echo chambers’ are one of the drivers of both policy and affective polarization. In this article, we develop and test the ar- gument that the political homogeneity of people’s social environment shapes polarization. Using an innovative, large-scale pre-registered ‘lab-in-the-field’ experiment in the UK, we examine how polarization is influenced by parti- san group homogeneity. We recruit nationally representative partisans and assign them to discuss a salient policy issue, either with like-minded par- tisans (an echo chamber) or in a mixed-partisan group. This allows us to examine how group composition affects polarization. In line with our ex- pectations, we find that partisan echo chambers increase both policy and affective polarization compared to mixed discussion groups. This has im- portant implications for our understanding of the drivers of polarization and for how outgroup animosity might be ameliorated in the mass public

Voters might be fed up with politicians, but they will listen to people ‘like them’

The EU referendum campaign has made it apparent that a large number of voters are reluctant to trust politicians and experts. But who do they trust? Based on a unique study of 3,000 British voters, Sara Hobolt, Thomas J. Leeper and James Tilley conclude that a largely overlooked factor is the influence of the behaviour of people from the same social group. They show that informing respondents of the intention to vote of those ‘like them’ has a clear impact on their opinion about the referendum