Are would-be authoritarians right? Democratic support and citizens’ left-right self-placement in former left- and right- authoritarian countries

Conventional wisdom dictates that the more citizens lean toward either end of the ideological spectrum, the lower their support for democracy. The main model pitted against this ‘rigidity-of-the-extremes model’ is the ‘rigidity-of-the-right model’. This model assumes that rightist citizens are less supportive. This study proposes and empirically demonstrates the validity of an alternative model, which we call ‘the authoritarian legacy model’. This model predicts that whether leftist or rightist citizens are less supportive of democracy depends on countries’ experience with left- or right- authoritarianism. To evaluate its validity, we present a systematic comparative investigation of the relation between citizens’ ideological and democratic beliefs, using European and World Values Survey data from 38 European countries (N = 105,495; 1994-2008). In line with this model, our analyses demonstrate that democratic support is lowest among leftist citizens in former left-authoritarian countries and among rightist citizens in former right-authoritarian countries. We find that this relation persists even among generations that grew up after authoritarian rule. These findings suggest that traditional ideological rigidity models are unsuitable for the study of citizens’ democratic beliefs

Pariah Parties: On the origins and electoral consequences of the ostracism of political parties in established democracies

Defense Date: 15/05/2009Examining Board: Mark Franklin (EUI), Michael Laver (New York University), Peter Mair (EUI) (Supervisor), Cees van der Eijk (University of Nottingham) (External Co-SupervisorParty politics is about cooperation and conflict between political parties. At certain times, a party may rule out all political cooperation with a particular other party. In these cases, there is only conflict between the parties. This dissertation is about such situations. I define the systematic refusal of a particular party to cooperate politically with a particular other party as the party’s ostracism of the other party. It is the causes and consequences of ostracism that I wish to explain in this thesis. In order to do so, I first define the concepts of the ‘anti-immigration party’ and the ‘communist party.’ Based on both a literature review and an expert survey, conducted in the course of this study, I classify other parties’ responses to the existence of 46 anti-immigration and communist parties in 15 countries in postwar Western Europe as either ‘ostracism’ or ‘no ostracism.’ In the first part of this dissertation, I use the resulting classification as the dependent variable in a comparative-empirical analysis, in order to explain the variation in other parties’ political responses to particular political parties. Using logistic regression analysis on the basis of two different data sets, I find that other parties are likely to systematically boycott a far right party if they do not need to cooperate with it anyway. They are even more likely to do so if it holds anti-democratic ideologies. The ‘ostracism’ / ‘no ostracism’ classification is the main independent variable in the second part of the research, which aims at exploring the consequences of the exclusion of political parties for their electoral support. I argue and empirically demonstrate, by way of different regression analysis techniques on the basis of 15 different data sets, that when ostracized, anti-immigration and communist parties are less able to affect policy outcomes, which is what generally interests voters. As a result, these parties lose votes. There is one main exception to this rule. Anti-immigration parties that operate in a political context where opposition influence in parliament is high, and which are represented in the national parliament, are immune to the deleterious impact of ostracism on their electoral support. It seems that these parties can exercise power over policy-making in spite of being ostracized, thereby remaining attractive to voters. Thus, institutional factors determine whether or not ostracizing a rival party is an effective tool in the hands of targeting parties in order to safeguard democracy - or just to hold on to power

Contagious Parties: Anti-Immigration Parties and Their Impact on Other Parties’ Immigration Stances in Contemporary Western Europe

Anti-immigration parties have experienced electoral lift-off in most Western democracies, although the consequences of their victories for real-life policy outcomes have remained largely unexplored. A key question is: do electoral pressures from anti-immigration parties have a ‘contagion’ impact on other parties’ immigration policy positions? In this article, I argue and empirically demonstrate that this is the case. On the basis of a comparative-empirical study of 75 parties in 11 Western European countries, I conclude that this contagion effect involves entire party systems rather than the mainstream right only. In addition, I find that opposition parties are more vulnerable to this contagion effect than parties in government. The findings of this article imply that anti-immigration parties are able to influence policy output in their political systems without entering government

Martyrs for Free Speech? Disentangling the Effects of Legal Prosecution of Anti-immigration Politicians on their Electoral Support

Several anti-immigration politicians in Europe have been prosecuted for hate speech; some of these trials were highly mediatized. To what extent, and how, does hate speech prosecution of anti-immigration politicians affect voting for their party? We address this question by an experiment (N = 372) using manipulated versions of a television news story about a politician of the Dutch Party Forum for Democracy (FvD). We go beyond prior studies by disentangling the mechanisms driving the electoral ramifications of hate speech prosecution, assessing the moderating role of multiculturalist attitudes separately and in combination with six mediators (anti-establishment attitudes, issue salience immigration, perceived party’s effectiveness and legitimacy, support for free speech, and perceived party visibility). Among voters who are positive toward multiculturalism, exposure to a news story about prosecution boosts support for free speech and perceived visibility and support for the FvD. Both aspects are positively related to voting for FvD. This improves our understanding of the mechanisms of hate speech prosecution, informing public debates of how to react to controversial speech by politicians.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Who’s Afraid of Terror News? The Interplay between News Consumption Patterns, Personal Experiences and Fear of Terrorism

A positive correlation between exposure to terrorism news reports and fear of terrorism has been documented, but less is known about factors moderating this relationship. Our focus is mostly on identifying relevant moderators. We argue that individuals’ habitual patterns in news consumption (frequency, type of outlet, genre) and personal experiences (prior victimization, living in a diverse neighborhood, residing in an urban area) are relevant in this regard. In a between-subjects experiment (2 groups: exposure to terror threat story vs. control story) in Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden (N = 786) we exposed participants to a news story on terror threat. Effects on fear of terrorism were especially strong for citizens that often consume soft, popular and commercial forms of news and live in urban areas.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Immigration, Europe, and the 'New' Cultural Dimension

Kriesi et al. announced the birth of a new cleavage in contemporary Western Europe, one dividing the winners and losers of globalisation. Their studies in 2006 and 2008 contain analyses of party positions in six countries, based on the contents of editorial sections of newspapers. This article challenges the main conclusion of Kriesi et al. by demonstrating - on the basis of two expert surveys - that party positions are mainly structured by one dimension. The structure detected by Kriesi et al. in their analysis of parties is not found, except concerning voter positions. A consequence of this article's findings is that large groups of citizens are not represented by any parties, in particular those who are left-wing on socio-economic issues and right-wing on cultural issues. The article in its conclusion discusses possible causes for the differences between these findings and those of Kriesi et al., and the implications of these findings for democratic representation