| 1. |
- Smith, Jennifer A, et al.
(författare)
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Genome-wide association study identifies 74 loci associated with educational attainment
- 2016
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Ingår i: Nature (London). - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1476-4687 .- 0028-0836. ; 533:7604, s. 539-542
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Educational attainment is strongly influenced by social and other environmental factors, but genetic factors are estimated to account for at least 20% of the variation across individuals. Here we report the results of a genome-wide association study (GWAS) for educational attainment that extends our earlier discovery sample of 101,069 individuals to 293,723 individuals, and a replication study in an independent sample of 111,349 individuals from the UK Biobank. We identify 74 genome-wide significant loci associated with the number of years of schooling completed. Single-nucleotide polymorphisms associated with educational attainment are disproportionately found in genomic regions regulating gene expression in the fetal brain. Candidate genes are preferentially expressed in neural tissue, especially during the prenatal period, and enriched for biological pathways involved in neural development. Our findings demonstrate that, even for a behavioural phenotype that is mostly environmentally determined, a well-powered GWAS identifies replicable associated genetic variants that suggest biologically relevant pathways. Because educational attainment is measured in large numbers of individuals, it will continue to be useful as a proxy phenotype in efforts to characterize the genetic influences of related phenotypes, including cognition and neuropsychiatric diseases.
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| 2. |
- Aggeborn, Linuz, et al.
(författare)
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Does Election Salience Affect Immigrant Voter Turnout?
- 2020
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Faced with rising levels of cross-border migration, many democratic countries have extended local voting rights to non-naturalized immigrants in recent decades. However, the low turnout of enfranchised immigrants in these elections has come as a disappointment to the advocates of such reforms. In this study, we examine whether the low turnout can be explained by the low salience of local elections. Based on a regression discontinuity design and using high-quality Swedish registry data, we find this to be the case. According to our results, the average likelihood of voting increases by 10-20 percentage points once immigrants become eligible to vote in national elections. We demonstrate too that this effect is not driven by the acquisition of citizenship per se, and that the individual characteristics of immigrants cannot explain their overall lower rate of voter turnout.
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| 3. |
- Aggeborn, Linuz, 1986-, et al.
(författare)
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Granting Immigrants the Right to Vote in National Elections : Empirical Evidence from Swedish Administrative Data
- 2024
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Ingår i: British Journal of Political Science. - : Cambridge University Press. - 0007-1234 .- 1469-2112.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Faced with rising levels of cross-border migration, many countries have extended local voting rights to non-citizen residents. However, empirical evidence indicates that voter turnout among non-naturalized immigrants is lower when compared to citizens. This raises the question of how to explain this difference. A common answer is that the low turnout rates of non-citizen residents are primarily due to the socio-economic composition of this group and the challenges involved in adapting to a new political system. An alternative but less discussed possibility is that the low turnout concerns the nature of the elections. Hence, we examine whether the turnout of non-citizens is hampered because they are only allowed to partake in local elections. Based on a regression discontinuity design (RDD) using Swedish administrative data, we find that turnout could increase by 10-20 percentage points if the voting rights of non-citizens were extended to the national level.
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| 4. |
- Aggeborn, Linuz, 1986-, et al.
(författare)
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Parents, Peers, and Politics : The Long-term Effects of Vertical Social Ties
- 2020
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Ingår i: Quarterly Journal of Political Science. - : NOW PUBLISHERS INC. - 1554-0626 .- 1554-0634. ; 15:2, s. 221-253
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We examine how one's adult political participation is affected by having social ties to a politician during adolescence. Specifically, we estimate the long-term effect of having had a classmate during upper secondary school whose parent was running for office on future voter turnout and the likelihood of running for and winning political office. We use unique Swedish population-wide administrative data and find that students in school classes with a larger number of politically active parents are more politically active as adults, both in terms of voting and political candidacy. Our results suggest that the effect of vertical social ties is predominantly mediated by indirect links between the politician and the student via the children of politicians. Moreover, we show that the strength of these mobilizing effects depends on the individual's basic predisposition to engage in different types of political activities.
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| 5. |
- Andersson, Henrik, et al.
(författare)
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Effects of Settlement into Ethnic Enclaves on Immigrant Voter Turnout
- 2022
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Ingår i: Journal of Politics. - : University of Chicago Press. - 0022-3816 .- 1468-2508. ; 84:1, s. 578-584
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- What is the effect of residing in ethnic enclaves on immigrants’ future political participation? We study a comprehensive refugee placement reform that was implemented in Sweden in the mid-1980s in combination with unique individual-level turnout data to study the causal effect of being settled in neighborhoods with a high residential concentration of coethnics on immigrants’ future probability of voting. We find little evidence that ethnic concentration per se affects voter turnout. On average, newly arrived immigrants were equally likely to vote whether they were placed in a neighborhood with many or few coethnics. Further analyses, however, indicate that the effect of ethnic concentration depends on the degree of political integration among previously settled coethnics; ethnic concentration increases turnout among the newly immigrated when they are placed with already politically integrated coethnics. These results underscore the conditions under which the political socialization of immigrant newcomers is enhanced in ethnic enclaves.
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| 6. |
- Bratsberg, Bernt, et al.
(författare)
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Birth Order and Voter Turnout
- 2022
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Ingår i: British Journal of Political Science. - : Cambridge University Press. - 0007-1234 .- 1469-2112. ; 52:1, s. 475-482
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Previous studies have stressed the role of a child's family environment for future political participation. This field of research has, however, overlooked that children within the same family have different experiences depending on their birth order. First-borns spend their first years of life without having to compete over their parents' attention and resources, while their younger siblings are born into potential rivalry. We examine differences in turnout depending on birth order, using unique population-wide individual level register data from Sweden and Norway that enables precise within-family estimates. We consistently find that higher birth order entails lower turnout, and that the turnout differential with respect to birth order is stronger when turnout is lower. The link between birth order and turnout holds when we use data from four other, non-Nordic countries. This birth order effect appears to be partly mediated by socio-economic position and attitudinal predispositions.
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| 7. |
- Brännlund, Anton
(författare)
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Wealth and the economic vote : How assets and liabilities shape election outcomes
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis contributes to the literature on economic voting, especially the subfield of the electoral impact in relation to wealth. The thesis consists of an introductory chapter and four independent research articles based on data from Sweden. Based on the first article, I find that the support for right-wing parties decreases in areas where voters are heavily invested in financial assets when there is a large amount of volatility in the world markets. Such patterns suggest that voters are responsive to financial risks. Through the second study, I illustrate that voters are sensitive to changes in monetary policies as well. More precisely, I show that voters tend to reward governments for decreases in interest rates. With the third study, I investigate the interplay of markets in a more direct way, estimating the effect of unemployment on voting in relation to household wealth. I find that the Swedish left-wing parties gain electoral advantage when the unemployment rates rise in less wealthy areas but that they lose support where voters are comparatively well-off. Finally, based on the fourth study, I investigate whether wealth has an impact on how voters behave with individual level data. The findings in this study suggest that wealthy citizens vote for right-wing parties to a grater extent. However, the estimated effect is small.
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| 8. |
- Cronert, Axel, 1986-
(författare)
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All Interventionists Now? : On the Political Economy of Active Labor Market Policy as Micro-Interventionist Multi-Tools
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- As recent decades have seen a growing interest in reforming advanced welfare states to promote employment, active labor market policy (ALMP) has emerged as a major topic of inquiry among comparative political economists. Whereas the literature to date disagrees on, and mostly downplays, the role of partisan politics in the development of ALMP, this dissertation shows that political actors systematically use ALMP programs in different ways to achieve distinct political aims. Drawing mostly on a rich, new panel data set on approximately 1,000 programs across Europe, the dissertation draws attention to several politically salient dimensions of ALMP that need to be taken seriously to understand how partisan politics matter in advanced industrial democracies.Essay I reconciles the conflicting understandings of partisanship and ALMP in the ‘power resources’ and ‘insider/outsider’ schools by highlighting that ALMP programs may serve two overarching purposes. The essay shows that left-leaning governments are particularly inclined to expand programs designed primarily to reduce unemployment, whereas governments of all suits are equally supportive of programs that also, or instead, serve to increase labor supply.Essay II focuses on employment subsidies, documenting how these may be designed to tackle different labor market challenges among different target groups. Emphasizing institutional path dependency, the essay then shows that cross-national variation in employment subsidy design broadly reflects the varying institutional regimes in different parts of Europe.Essay III reconsiders the conventional view on the importance of employer involvement and corporatist institutions for ALMP by separating programs produced unilaterally by the state from programs, such as employment subsidies, produced jointly by the state and employers to the benefit of both. The essay finds that corporatist institutions primarily matter for ALMP by paving the way for governments—especially with business-friendly center-right parties—that favor joint over unilateral production.The introductory essay argues that ALMP forms part of a larger family of economic policies that are sufficiently versatile to be sustained and used by actors across the political spectrum. Reviewing long-term trends in economic policy in OECD countries, it shows that these policies, which are here labelled micro-interventionist multi-tools, have expanded considerably since the early 1980s.
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| 9. |
- Dancygier, Rafaela, et al.
(författare)
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Candidate Supply Is Not a Barrier to Immigrant Representation : A Case-Control Study
- 2021
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Ingår i: American Journal of Political Science. - : Wiley. - 0092-5853 .- 1540-5907. ; 65:3, s. 683-698
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Immigrants are underrepresented in most democratic parliaments. To explain the immigrant-native representation gap, existing research emphasizes party gatekeepers and structural conditions. But a more complete account must consider the possibility that the representation gap begins at the supply stage. Are immigrants simply less interested in elected office? To test this explanation, we carried out an innovative case-control survey in Sweden. We surveyed elected politicians, candidates for local office, and residents who have not run; stratified these samples by immigrant status; and linked all respondents to local political opportunity structures. We find that differences in political ambition, interest, and efficacy do not help explain immigrants' underrepresentation. Instead, the major hurdles lie in securing a candidate nomination and being placed on an electable list position. We conclude that there is a sufficient supply of potential immigrant candidates, but immigrants' ambition is thwarted by political elites.
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| 10. |
- Dancygier, Rafaela M., et al.
(författare)
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Why Are Immigrants Underrepresented in Politics? Evidence from Sweden
- 2015
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Ingår i: American Political Science Review. - 0003-0554 .- 1537-5943. ; 109:4, s. 703-724
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Widespread and persistent political underrepresentation of immigrant-origin minorities poses deep challenges to democratic practice and norms. What accounts for this underrepresentation? Two types of competing explanations are prevalent in the literature: accounts that base minority underrepresentation on individual-level resources and accounts that emphasize political opportunity structures. However, due to the lack of data suitable for testing these explanations, existing research has not been able to adjudicate between these theories. Using registry-based microdata covering the entire Swedish adult population between 1991 and 2010 our study is the first to empirically evaluate these alternative explanations. We examine election outcomes to municipal councils over the course of six elections and find that variation in individual-level resources cannot explain immigrants' underrepresentation. Further, when comparing immigrants and natives who face comparable political opportunity structures a large representation gap remains. Instead, we argue that discrimination by party gatekeepers plays a more significant role in perpetuating the underrepresentation of immigrants than do individual resources or structural variables.
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