Figure 8 - uploaded by Joost van Spanje
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The main results using smaller windows for treated observations. Note: Numbering on the horizontal axis follows the number of days after the murder the respondent was interviewed. All curves are local polynomials with Gaussian kernels and bandwidth of 0.8. The dots denote the actual ATEs and the dashed curves capture the 95% confidence intervals.
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Do voters like the party they already agree with or do they agree with the party they already like? Previous studies have suggested a link from preferences to perceptions. However, such a causal link has not been convincingly demonstrated. Most issue voting studies have adopted the basic premise of spatial models of voting—that voters compare parti...
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... interaction coefficients are always indistinguishable from zero and very small in magnitude. 25 A fourth test is shown in Figure 8, which cuts the window of treated units according to the number of days that had passed after the assassination. If all the effects are due to media coverage, one would expect that they should materialize only after some days had passed since the assassination. ...
Citations
... A wealth of research speaks to the existence of projection bias: voters consistently place political parties closer to themselves on issue or ideological scales when they like the political party, and further away from themselves when they dislike the political party (Markus and Converse, 1979;Merrill, Grofman and Adams, 2001;MacDonald, Rabinowitz and Listhaug, 2007;Dinas, Hartman and van Spanje, 2016). In other words, if voters feel close to a party, they will want to believe that this party is closer to them ideologically than it may objectively be. ...
... Research has shown that projection bias in party placements is widespread across different Western democracies (Merrill, Grofman and Adams, 2001;Grand and Tiemann, 2013). While much of this research is observational, evidence from a natural experiment in the Netherlands shows that changes in affect towards political parties impact voters' perceived ideological proximity to political parties (Dinas, Hartman and van Spanje, 2016). When there is an exogenous shock that makes voters feel warmer towards a political party, voters place the party in question closer to themselves on an ideological scale (Dinas, Hartman and van Spanje, 2016). ...
... While much of this research is observational, evidence from a natural experiment in the Netherlands shows that changes in affect towards political parties impact voters' perceived ideological proximity to political parties (Dinas, Hartman and van Spanje, 2016). When there is an exogenous shock that makes voters feel warmer towards a political party, voters place the party in question closer to themselves on an ideological scale (Dinas, Hartman and van Spanje, 2016). ...
Strong negative feelings towards political parties are prevalent in many Western democracies. Yet, when negative partisanship is studied, it is often treated as a by-product of positive partisanship. This paper-based thesis challenges this assumption and argues that strong negative feelings towards political parties are a force of their own. What are the implications of negative partisanship for voters and political parties? Through three survey experiments and one field experiment, I show that negative political identities have distinct and powerful consequences for both voters and parties. Firstly, I make a novel theoretical contribution to the partisanship literature by arguing that negative partisanship affects how voters feel about multiple political parties, not just the one that they dislike. In line with the idea of “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”, I find that negative partisanship can inspire feelings of closeness to other political parties. Secondly, through a field experiment with a political party, I show that cueing negative political identities has stronger mobilising effects than cueing positive political identities. This makes an important contribution to our understanding of how political parties activate negative political identities to their advantage, and shows that invoking these has implications for real-world, costly political behaviour. Finally, I examine if and how disliked political parties can reduce negative feelings towards them and their core issue positions. I find that “normative repackaging”, a strategy which couples an unacceptable policy position with a highly acceptable one, is an effective way for radical right-wing parties to make their core policy positions feel more acceptable to voters. By demonstrating the relevance of negative feelings and identities for voters and parties, this thesis provides an important contribution to our understanding of political behaviour and party competition in Western democracies.
... The effect of issue proximity on party support seems to be moderated by voter polarisation (Han, 2018), or by issue constraint and how immigration fits underlying cleavages (Pardos-Pardo, 2012). Note that perceptions of proximity may be endogenous to party affect (Dinas et al., 2016). Finally, the political supply may be scarce for voters who are economically left-wing but hold anti-immigration attitudes (Van der Brug & van Spanje, 2009). ...
This chapter will focus on labour migration , that is the movement of persons with the aim of employment or income-bringing activities (e.g., entrepreneurship), developing the topic which was also touched upon in Chap. 10.1007/978-3-030-92377-8_3 on conceptual understanding of migration drivers. Research on labour migration has developed across various disciplines (e.g., sociology, anthropology, and geography), but most prominently in economics. It has resulted in a range of theoretical frameworks, starting with neoclassical economic theories and advancing through the New Economics of Labour Migration (NELM), dual labour market theory, and social network theory, to more recent transnational approaches or theories dedicated to particular forms of labour migration. These diverse approaches offer insights into labour migration on macro-, meso- and micro-levels. Although a dichotomy based on skills (high-skilled vs. low-skilled workers) can be seen as controversial or misleading as a division between workers representing these two types of skills is often vague or difficult to determine, the distinction does reflect recent debates on labour migration. Thus, a high−/low-skills dichotomy serves as a guide to the structure of this chapter.
... The effect of issue proximity on party support seems to be moderated by voter polarisation (Han, 2018), or by issue constraint and how immigration fits underlying cleavages (Pardos-Pardo, 2012). Note that perceptions of proximity may be endogenous to party affect (Dinas et al., 2016). Finally, the political supply may be scarce for voters who are economically left-wing but hold anti-immigration attitudes (Van der Brug & van Spanje, 2009). ...
Migration and migration-related diversity are likely to remain key topics of the European policy and research agenda for the foreseeable future. This asks for a rethinking of the research agenda on migration, from a strategic perspective as well as from a research perspective. The objective of this chapter is to suggest applications that are useful in shaping the next funding opportunities for migration research, and to provide roadmaps for the optimisation of research efforts in order to avoid overlapping and, where possible, to close the gaps in the global spectrum and national initiatives on migration. Questions such as How to benefit from and get access to available knowledge and expertise? How to promote the accumulation of knowledge and expertise? and How to address gaps in knowledge? have been at the heart of the Horizon 2020 CrossMigration research project and have led to the definition of its strategic research agenda . This chapter considers the need for a future agenda on migration studies, addressing methodological issues; what funding to focus on; how funding might be organised; who should be involved in funding (and procedures); and what prospects there are for the future. We will also propose three strategies to consider how an agenda might help provide towards: (1) keeping the road safe for achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals in 2030, (2) contrasting current and future pandemic/epidemic disease, and (3) establishing a fruitful dialogue with the African scientific community.
... As suggested in earlier research (Page & Brody, 1972), ambiguity in candidates' positions can nurture projection (Martin et al., 2021;Nasr, 2021), with the preferred candidate often getting the benefit of the doubt (Tomz & Van Houweling, 2009). Exogenous increases in candidate or party affect also increase projection effects (Amira, 2018;Dinas et al., 2016). ...
The Catholic Church is the largest religious denomination in the United States, yet political science lacks a comprehensive account of how the cross-pressures created by its policy prescriptions structure Catholic political behavior. Because Catholicism's policy positions land on both sides of the contemporary partisan divide—its cultural concerns aligning with the Republican Party and its pro-social justice stance compatible with Democratic priorities—adherence to Church teaching creates electoral dilemmas for Catholic voters. By juxtaposing existing work on Catholic political behavior with the psychological literature on cognitive dissonance, we form expectations about Catholic adherence to Church policy prescriptions and its implications for electoral choice. We focus empirically on “Seamless Garment Catholics” (SGCs)—those Catholics who share the Church's policy positions—finding that seamless-garment views are uncommon among Catholic voters, are more common among religiously committed and Latino Catholics, and are discouraged by ties to the two major parties. SGCs are more likely than other Catholics to employ psychological coping mechanisms, such as avoidance and selective perception, to reduce Church-inspired cognitive dissonance. Our research provides insight into an important electoral bloc that is cross-pressured uniquely by its faith commitments.
... When examining the subset that answered the survey after the assassination of Pim Fortuyn one also sees that the pre-treatment 2002 perception of the LPF is slightly more moderate. Elias Dinas et al. (2016) showed that the murder itself generated a surge in sympathy for the LPF which motivated survey respondents to place the party much closer to their own positions on the issues of asylum-seekers, crime, economic redistribution and euthanasia. For this subset there is a positive and significant treatment effect, suggesting that the LPF was not perceived as moderating very much after joining the coalition. ...
European mainstream right parties are increasingly choosing to include radical right parties in coalition governments or other types of stable and committed cooperation. How does this cooperation affect voters’ perceptions of party positions? This article examines whether coalition signals have a significant impact on voters’ perceptions of the specific policy issues that were at stake in the bargaining process. More specifically, does the issue ownership of the radical right cause voters to perceive mainstream parties as radicalizing on immigration issues pertaining to asylum and multiculturalism? I compare the perceptions of Dutch parties before and after two coalition formations that (formally and informally) involved a radical right party: the coalition with the List Pim Fortuyn in 2002 and the support agreement with the Freedom Party in 2010. Furthermore, I examine the long-term effects of the Danish mainstream right government's reliance on the support of the radical right Danish People's Party in 2001–11.
... As Evans and Tilley (2012) show, the maintenance of politically consequential class divisions is perfectly consistent with a pattern of declining class voting if political parties strategically tone down economic appeals (see also Evans 2000;Tavits and Potter 2015). Recent evidence further suggests that ample attitudinal differences exist possibly exaggerated (Grand and Tiemann 2013;Merrill, Grofman, and Adams 2001; but see Dinas, Hartman, and Van Spanje 2016). In our context, assimilation may mean that rich (poor) people perceive that right (left) parties are closer to their own positions. ...
Does economic inequality warp voters' views about party platforms? If so, are voters' perceptual biases systemically shaped by their economic status? Drawing from a psychological theory of class conflict, we argue that income inequality heightens disagreement about party positions among people with different economic status. Analyzing survey responses on perceived ideological positions of 700 + parties in over 110 elections, we reveal that poorer and richer voters systematically misperceive the positions of parties in opposite directions, and that the extent to which they do so is larger in more unequal societies. We also show that class‐based perceptual disagreement is particularly salient among left‐ and right‐leaning parties, but not among centrist parties. Our findings question a fundamental principle of representative democracy, suggesting that even a basic consensus on the ideological placements of parties cannot be taken for granted in highly unequal societies.
... As Rabinowitz and Macdonald (1989) summarize, early popular spatial models indicated that a voter would evaluate candidates according to their respective locations in the opinion space and choose the closest candidate in terms of the distance between the voter's and the candidate's locations. Because of the way "perceived proximity affects party or candidate preferences" (Dinas, Hartman, & van Spanje, 2016), the basis of such a model is called the "proximity theory." It should be noted that, the average voter's ability to perceive the proximity of a candidate/party that casts doubt on the validity of the proximity theory. ...
... The optimum party locations found through the experiments indicated that the directional voting tendency would increase the radicalization levels of even the major parties with the greatest voter bases. The results support the relationship suggested between centrifugal placements of political parties and directional voting (Dinas, Hartman, & van Spanje, 2016), but the direction of causality may be opposite to that suggested by other researchers (Lachat, 2008). We hence conclude that, the radicalizations levels of major parties indicate the likelihood that an average voter will vote directionally. ...
This study proposes a Gaussian utility function for the proximity theory so that it only describes the variation of party affinity of the voter with the ideological distance from the party. Eliminating the repulsive portion of its currently adopted utility function distinguishes the proximity theory from the directional theory. Instead of trying to fit actual voting behavior to either utility function, the functions are tested on an idealized computer model of the voters' opinion space to test their suitability. By testing varying linear combination of the utility functions of the two theories, optimum locations of parties are found that will maximize the average value of the combined voter utility function. Results indicate that catch-all parties with large voter bases choose locations near the neutral center, but increasing the contribution from the directional utility function pushes the parties further away from the neutral center. These findings support the observed relationship between ideological polarization and the directional voting tendency. The conclusion is that a linear combination of the two utility functions appear to be more suitable to explain idealized voter behavior.
... The departure point in our argument is the presence of 'projection bias' (Sherif and Hovland 1965) as applied to models of spatial voting (Dinas, Hartman and van Spanje 2016;Merrill, Grofman and Adams 2001;Van der Brug 2001): people tend to locate parties they like closer to their ideal point (assimilation bias) and parties they dislike further away (contrast effects). ...
How do left-right labels take on meaning in new democracies? Most of the literature either assumes that a common understanding of ideology is readily available to new democracies or points to variation in the dominance of different social cleavages. We propose an alternative theory, which focuses on the legacy of the authoritarian past. Dictatorships are not ideologically neutral. They are linked either to the left or to the right. Neither are they positively evaluated by most citizens and political elites after democratization. Combining these two observations, we derive a model of ideological learning. In its purest form, the model suggests that when the authoritarian regime is linked to the left (right), the new democratic regime will be characterised by an anti-left (anti-right) bias. We test our hypothesis with a new individual-level repeated cross-sectional dataset that covers all Latin American and European new democracies. We find significant ideological bias, which tends to evaporate over time and as the political system consolidates. We also show that the strength and durability of ideological bias is mediated by indoctrination under the previous regime. The findings carry important implications for our understanding of authoritarian legacies and party system development in new democracies.
