| 1. |
- Erlingsson, Gissur Ó, 1974-, et al.
(författare)
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Anti-immigrant parties, local presence and electoral success
- 2012
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Ingår i: Local Government Studies. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0300-3930 .- 1743-9388. ; 38:6, s. 817-839
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Does the local organisational presence of anti-immigrant parties affect their chances for electoral success? In order to answer this question, the article explores the potential of a supply-oriented explanation to anti-immigrant party success by examining the electoral advancements the Sweden Democrats (SD) made in the 2006 and 2010 elections. Our results indicate that traditional demand side-explanations to anti-immigrant party success can be successfully complemented by a ‘internal supply-side argument’ to make the electoral fates of these parties more intelligible. Whether the SD had a local organisational presence had a substantial effect on its results in the national election and on the probability of gaining representation in local councils. Thus, the party´s fate in the national as well as local elections was largely determined by whether or not it had a local organisational presence in Swedish municipalities.
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| 2. |
- Babajan, Tigran, 1986-
(författare)
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Oligarchs, State Power and Mass Opinion : A Study of the Role of Oligarchs in Post-Soviet Pseudo-democracies
- 2018
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis attempts to understand the role of oligarchs in post-Soviet pseudo-democratic regime trajectories. The two dominant, competing streams of prior work have emphasized either the importance of state power or that of mass opinion in these processes in order to explain why some regimes successfully maintain their grip on power, while others make gradual steps towards democratization. However, the role of oligarchs has been largely overlooked; a gap filled by this study. It employs both widely accepted, as well as unique data to approach the research problem. The work presented in this thesis involves large-N surveys, analyses of media reports and an in-depth case study. There are three key findings:First, for an overwhelming majority of citizens in post-Soviet pseudo-democracies, oligarchs’ actual, negative influence on the political system as well as popular perceptions of unfair wealth concentration are conducive to beliefs that a non-democratic regime is what is needed in order to set things right in their country.Second, the findings from Armenia, Georgia, Russia and Ukraine demonstrate that four politically motivated, rival oligarchs focused on enhancing their reputation and organizational capacity in their struggles for power. In all four countries, regimes used their state power to counter the rival oligarchs. Evidence from Armenia and Russia provides a nuanced understanding of these interactions. In particular, incumbents in these countries used their state power to manipulate public opinion in order to damage the reputation and credibility of the rival oligarchs. This thesis suggests that the main regime leaders do so in order to portray themselves as more trustworthy than their oligarch rivals.Third, a survey analysis of Kyiv university students shows that they view most oligarchs as corrupt and harmful to their political system. According to the survey results, oligarchs’ concentration of wealth appears to disqualify them from being legitimate political players. Yet, further evidence from this thesis suggests that people differentiate between oligarchs as a group and as individuals, which allows at least some oligarchs to enhance their reputation by using their vast material wealth. I conclude this thesis by discussing possible policy and societal implication of the results and by setting out some new venues of future research.
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| 3. |
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Blombäck, Sofie, 1982-, et al.
(författare)
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DIPAC Government Declaration Data : Technical Report 2.0
- 2022
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Rapport (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The data described in this report were collected for the DIPAC-project. The project’s aim was to investigate the proposed crisis of parties and party systems in Western Europe during the last four decades. The implications of the crisis are that the link between political parties and citizens has been broken, that the political substance of the dominant parties is becoming increasingly similar, and that party systems are being fragmented along new cleavages where right-wing populist, anti-immigration parties are being set against their opposites, such as green parties. The project aimed to answer the following two questions: 1. To what extent are the ideas and policies of political parties converging or diverging in Western European party systems? 2. Are changes in the parties’ ideas and policies initiated mainly by the parties, or are they adjusting to voter demand arising from social changes? One of our main goals was to collect and analyze data on governments in established democracies in a systematic and comparable manner for the time-period from the mid-1970s to the mid-2010s. The eight cases in focus in the project are Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland (not included in this data set), the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
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| 6. |
- Bolin, Niklas, 1977-, et al.
(författare)
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Radical right parties, organizational maturity and electoral success.The Sweden Democrats and the elections of 2006 and 2010
- 2014
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Although it is commonly claimed that radical right parties, by developing viable partyorganisations, ultimately are masters of their own electoral fates, we argue that previousresearch is devoid of empirical evidence supporting this proposition. Drawing on extensivesubnational data from Sweden, this article breaks new ground by gauging the impact of threeunique measures on the electoral performance of the Sweden Democrats in the 2006 and 2010elections. When controlling for crucial demand- and supply-side factors that are beyond thecontrol of radical right parties themselves we find that the size, competence, and cohesion ofthe party organisation all were decisive to the electoral performance of the SD. Consideringthat Sweden is often viewed as a least likely case for radical right party success, we concludeby arguing that these partisan challengers most likely are more capable of organising forelectoral success than hitherto assumed.
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| 7. |
- Farjam, Mike, 1986-, et al.
(författare)
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Experimental evidence of a bandwagon effect on voting
- 2019
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Ingår i: 6th International Meeting on Experimental and Behavioral Social Sciences (IMEBESS).
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Social influence and conformity have been thoroughly studied by social psychologists, leading political scientist to the postulation of the bandwagon effect. However, despite its relevance, the bandwagon effect, claiming that seeing pre-election polls makes votes for majority options more likely, has not been properly tested for political voting and evidence regarding this effect is mixed. Experiments either were ran in very abstract contexts only vaguely representing political voting, or only testing the effect of polls on opinions or hypothetical votes . We present an unique experimental design with more realism than previous designs, keeping the experimental control needed to make causal claims.We tested in an online experiment with 1115 participants from the US how votes change when pre-election polls are shown. Our experimental design is unique in that the votes of the participants have real-world consequences within their electoral area (the US), empower actual political organizations falling on a left-right spectrum, and the votes are on issues currently debated in US politics (firearms, abortion, immigration, and environment). Per issue participants chose between three different charities, representing different positions within the political spectrum. As a result of the experiment 1200$ were distributed across these charities as suggested by the vote.In line with the bandwagon-effect, we find clear evidence that seeing poll results makes votes for majority opinion more likely. After seeing the surveys, majority opinions received an extra ~7% of votes. In our experiment this effect did not depend on the electoral system and was robust against controlling for the gender and age of voters and the self-assessment on a left-right spectrum. However, we find evidence that under extreme-polarization (where moderate position are the least popular option) the bandwagon-effect is much weaker.
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| 8. |
- Farjam, Mike, et al.
(författare)
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Social conformity or attitude persistence? : The bandwagon effect and the spiral of silence in a polarized context
- 2024
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Ingår i: Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties. - : Informa UK Limited. - 1745-7297 .- 1745-7289. ; , s. 1-21
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study examines whether and to what extent the bandwagon effect and the spiral of silence impact opinion formation in a polarized context, where individuals tend to be persistent in their policy attitudes. Focusing on contentious policy issues at the heart of the culture war in American politics, our aim is to study the relative importance of attitude persistence and social conformity in the opinion-formation process, and how these responses depend on individuals’ ideological commitments. We conducted an experimental study of US citizens, where participants donated money to organizations advocating opposed positions on seven of the most contentious issues in American politics. Utilizing the presentation of opinion polls as a treatment, the findings are threefold. First, we show that polls cause ideologically moderate people to abandon the minority and conform to the majority opinion regardless of the issue at stake. By contrast, we show that attitude persistence prevails among ideologically extreme people. Second, we demonstrate that seeing polls generally demobilizes people with minority views. Third, we find that opinion-conversion and demobilization jointly undermine minority opinions, while only a small minority of extremists repels both mechanisms. These findings have important implications for research on opinion formation in today's polarized political landscape.
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| 9. |
- Gunnarson, Carina, 1965-, et al.
(författare)
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Antimafia, School and the Promotion of Generalized trust
- 2009
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This article analyses whether it is possible to develop generalized trust through public action at the grass-root level. We will analyse the impact of seven public schools in Palermo, Sicily, a city that is largely dominated by organized crime. Hierarchical regression analysis shows that the most important school factors for the development of generalized trust are related to openness of school structures, fairness of institutions, the character of peer interaction and students’ participation in voluntary organized activities within the school premises. The positive effects of participation in voluntary school activities can be contrasted to the negative influence of participation in social groups outside the realm of the school. The analysis also shows a small but significant effect of the family’s socio-cultural level on generalised trust. The article uses unique panel data collected at two different occasions in Palermo, in 2002 and 2005. The students were 10-11 years old in the first panel wave and 13-14 years old in the second.
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| 10. |
- Gunnarson, Carina, 1965-, et al.
(författare)
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School and the promotion of generalised trust : Experiences from Sicily
- 2012
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Ingår i: Journal of Trust Research. - Routledge : Informa UK Limited. - 2151-5581 .- 2151-559X. ; 2:2, s. 171-201
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article explores how generalised trust increases or decreases over time as a result of students’ individual experiences of informal school institutions. However, since experiences in local settings are likely to have varying effects on trust in different groups of strangers, we disentangle the concept of generalised trust and separate between different group-trust items. In the article, we show that three of these measure in-group generalised trust while one taps out-group generalised trust. Drawing on original data, collected in seven public schools in Palermo, Italy, between 2002 and 2005, we conclude that experiences of the school climate are transferred to both in-group and out-group generalised trust. However, our second main conclusion is that involvement in associations outside of school tends to generate distrust in people who resemble the respondents’ ingroup. By distinguishing between in-group and out-group generalised trust, we thus show that school experiences generate trust in unknown people in general, whereas other localised experiences are exclusively transferred to trust, or distrust, in familiar groups of people. We conclude by arguing that these findings are of potentially great importance to trust research since they suggest that generalised trust is less stable and more multi-faceted than previously thought. Moreover, since Palermo is a critical case, we argue that our results are encouraging. If schools can generate trust here, then schools are likely to have a similar effect elsewhere, in more favorable settings.
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