The political conditioning of subjective economic evaluations: the role of party discourse

Classic and revisionist perspectives on economic voting have thoroughly analyzed the role of macroeconomic indicators and individual partisanship as determinants of subjective evaluations of the national economy. Surprisingly, however, top-down analysis of parties’ capacity to cue and persuade voters about national economic conditions is absent in the debate. This study uses a novel dataset containing monthly economic salience in party parliamentary speeches, macroeconomic indicators and individual survey data covering the four last electoral cycles in Spain (1996–2011). The results show that the salience of economic issues in the challenger’s discourse substantially increases negative evaluations of performance when this challenger is the owner of the economic issue. While a challenger’s conditioning of public economic evaluations is independent of the state of the economy (and can affect citizens with different ideological orientations), incumbent parties are more constrained by the true state of the economy in their ability to persuade the electorate on this issue

Who supports Catalan independence, and is there a way forward?

Using recent survey data, Sergi Pardos-Prado explains that support for independence in Catalonia is strongly driven by education and language, and robustly associated with liberal sociocultural values. When it comes to the way forward, there is little consensus on the best outcome for Catalonia: those who favour independence are not in a majority, but those who oppose independence are split on the best alternative. However, a degree of consensus does exist on the process, with a large majority believing a referendum should be held to determine Catalonia’s future

Immigration and support for social policy: an experimental comparison of universal and means-tested programs

A growing body of research suggests that immigration undermines native support for the welfare state. However, the mechanisms behind this relationship and the possible moderating effects of institutions remain inconclusive. In this study, we identify via survey experiments how means-tested programs and targeted spending exacerbate the negative effect of immigration on public support for redistribution. Our findings suggest that different institutional settings can attach different weights to identity considerations across the whole socio-economic spectrum. We conclude by discussing the implications of our results for previous contradictory findings in the literature, and for the effectiveness of welfare policies in times of increasing ethnic diversity

The economy and the elderly helped Trump lose in 2020, and it would be a mistake for the GOP if he ran again

In the years since Donald Trump’s presidential election victory, much has been written about how populists gain power. But what can Trump’s 2020 presidential election loss tell us about how populists stay in or lose power? Using a survey of 1,200 Americans, Anja Neundorf and Sergi Pardos-Prado find that despite being a populist, Trump was assessed and held to account by voters like any other incumbent. They write that his handling of the economy hurt Trump’s electoral prospects across all groups, and of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially among older Americans

Economic responsiveness and the political conditioning of the electoral cycle

Understanding the drivers of party issue emphasis and the specific role of public opinion is important to shed light on the mechanisms of contemporary party competition and to assess the quality of representation in liberal democracies. Previous research has produced conflicting results between issue ownership and issue dialogue perspectives and has ignored the role of time in party communication strategy. We present a theory focused on the economy in which proximity to election day increases the incumbent’s cost of not responding to opponent attacks and subsequently decreases the incumbent’s attention to public opinion. We validate the main empirical implications of the model via content analysis of party discourse in Spanish parliamentary speeches (1996–2011) and time series analyses. Our results have pessimistic implications for an ideal conception of bottom-up representation. As electoral accountability pressures increase over the electoral cycle, endogenous party competition overshadows public opinion as a driver of representatives’ agenda

Labour market dualism and immigration policy preferences

What are the effects of labour market deregulation and increased immigration inflows on public attitudes towards immigration? Despite increased levels of dualism and free movement of labour in European countries over the last two decades, the effects of these policy developments are still unclear in the literature. This study argues that high concentrations of migrant workers in non-standard forms of employment decrease economic redistribution towards, and labour competition with, immigrants. Consequently, the politicisation of immigrant-native conflicts is paradoxically lower when immigration and labour market dualism cluster together at the occupational level. These claims are validated cross-nationally, and in a difference-in-differences setting analysing the impact of the 2005 German Immigration Act

The impact of Covid-19 on Trump’s electoral demise: the role of economic and democratic accountability

Did the COVID-19 crisis have a significant effect on Trump’s electoral demise? We present survey experimental evidence on two substantial effects of the pandemic. First, information on the unprecedented economic downturn significantly depressed Trump’s popular support across all partisan groups, and especially among middle-low and low-income respondents. Second, being primed on the poor public health record of the Trump administration reduced its electoral prospects among citizens between 55 and 70 years old. We conclude that the 2020 election was a normal contest compatible with theories of economic voting and political competence. Our results suggest that democratic accountability can be a powerful determinant of the fate of populist leaders once in power

The electoral effect of immigration preferences and the centre–periphery cleavage in Spain

The effect of immigration preferences on electoral outcomes in Spain is understudied. This paper hypothesises that, even in the absence of a radical right party, immigration preferences can be associated with mainstream voting when they are incorporated into established axes of political conflict. The analyses show that the electoral strength of immigration preferences is connected with the strength of the centre–periphery cleavage in Spain. More specifically, immigration preferences are a stronger determinant of the vote for parties with relatively more pro-decentralisation stances, among individuals with more coherent immigration and decentralisation attitudes, and in regions where the centre–periphery cleavage is stronger

How can mainstream parties prevent niche party success? Center-right parties and the immigration issue

No abstract available

Beyond Radical Right: Attitudes towards immigration and voting behaviour in Europe

Defense date: 27/09/2010Examining Board: Mark Franklin (EUI) (Supervisor), Peter Mair (EUI), José Ramón Montero (University of Madrid), Stephen Fisher (Trinity College, Oxford)Received the Special Mention of the Juan J. Linz prize for 2009-2010 by the Political and Constitutional Studies Centre in Spain.The issue of immigration has thus far been conceptualised almost exclusively as a catalyst for radical forms of behaviour. Scholars of political behaviour have focused on the exceptional character of the radical voter, the pivotal role played by radical right parties in explaining the strategies of mainstream parties, and the prevalence of negative attitudes. The aim of this study is to transcend the analysis of a minority of the political spectrum, present only in a limited number of political systems, and instead to comparatively observe the impact of attitudes towards immigration on mainstream electoral competition in Europe on the basis of individual, party and system levels of variation. The thesis has three main findings. First, the issue of immigration has strong potential to affect mainstream voting in contemporary European political systems. Contrary to what is usually implied by the literature on the radical right, attitudes towards immigration have a stronger tendency to generate centripetal rather than centrifugal electoral dynamics. Second, the immigration issue can reshape the morphology of established party systems through two distinct mechanisms of electoral change. The first mechanism is through the mobilisation of existing party supporters, which takes place through voters' calculations of electoral utility in a refined attitudinal continuum, taking into account voters' own positions and those of the parties. Thus, from a spatial voting perspective, the immigration issue can only mobilise parties' core supporters, but cannot easily generate vote transfers between parties. The second mechanism operates in reverse, through acquiring non-identified voters through valence mechanisms of voting. Changes in established electoral boundaries can only take place through voters who are not currently attached to a party, and who are able to link their concern about immigration to parties' competence in dealing with the issue. Finally, the third main finding of the thesis is that not all attitudinal constructs have a behavioural effect. Coherent perceptions constrained by previous left-right individual political predispositions are more likely to have an influence. These perceptions tend to focus on immigrant's adaptability to and compatibility with the host country. By contrast, perceptions framed in terms of superiority or inferiority of immigration vis-à-vis the host society are less likely to be translated into electoral outcomes