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on Collective Decision-Making |
| By: | Lasse Aaskoven (University of Southern Denmark); Christian Vedel (University of Southern Denmark) |
| Abstract: | A growing literature concerns the role of symbolic politics, including how political parties benefit electorally from politicizing the past, a strategy which should be more effective in localities with physical memories of the past. We test this argument by studying the effect of the local concentration of pre-Christian monuments on electoral support for the Danish Nazi Party -- a far-right party who relied heavily on the symbols of Denmark's pre-Christian past in its propaganda -- in Danish parliamentary elections 1935-1943. In contrast to the proposed theoretical argument, we find no evidence that Danish localities with a greater concentration of pre-Christian monuments saw greater electoral support for the Danish Nazi Party. These findings hint at the limits of symbolic politics for electoral support for the far-right and suggest that investigating the scope conditions for the political effects of physical memories of the past may be a fruitful avenue for future research. |
| Keywords: | Symbolic politics, Collective memory, Far-right voting |
| JEL: | D72 N44 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hes:wpaper:0295 |
| By: | Jan Zápal; Clara Ponsatí |
| Abstract: | A finite group of voters must elect the pope from a finite set of candidates. They repeatedly cast ballots (possibly for ever) until one candidate attains at least Q votes. A candidate is electable—if enough voters prefer him to a continuous disagreement—as well as stable—if no other candidate is preferred to him by a sufficient number of voters. We provide a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a candidate that is both electable and stable. When there are three candidates and voters are willing to compromise somewhat, the condition requires choice by two-thirds supermajority, which coincides with the procedure that the Catholic Church has used to appoint the pope for almost a millennium. |
| Keywords: | conclave, electable, Pope, repeated ballots, stable, supermajority |
| JEL: | D71 D72 Z12 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bge:wpaper:1553 |
| By: | Ali T. Akarca (University of Illinois); Aysit Tansel (Institute for Study of Labor (IZA)); Senay Üçdogruk Birecikli (Dokuz Eylül University) |
| Abstract: | Women’s electoral participation in Turkey is studied, using the probit procedure. The novelty of the study is the use of both micro-level and macro-level variables simultaneously. Furthermore, a wider range of variables are used in each of these categories than other studies on turnout in Turkey, including some variables never considered before. Results show that women’s propensity to vote is related to age (at least until 49) being married and residing in an electoral district with large number of viable female candidates, positively, and to being an ethnic minority, having children under 6, living in an urban area, living in an electoral district with a large number of parliament members and large effective number of parties, negatively. Education and household wealth have inverted-U shaped relationships with women’s probability to vote. Being a migrant reduces the likelihood of voting unless it occurs in a province with heavy migrant concentration and large number of parliament members. |
| Date: | 2024–10–20 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:erg:wpaper:1743 |
| By: | Vasiliki Fouka; Theo Serlin |
| Abstract: | When do people identify with their class? Evidence from social psychology shows that individuals are more likely to identify with a group if they are similar to its members. We study early 20th century Britain and show that regional cultural heterogeneity combined with internal migration influenced class identity. We develop and validate a measure of class identity using naming decisions. Exploiting within-household variation, we show that migration patterns that increased the local share of culturally-distant workers reduced working class identification. Where migration increased the cultural distance of the working class, workers were less likely to join unions, voters were less likely to support the nascent Labour Party, and parliamentary candidates were less likely to target working class voters. By 1911, slower in-migration and rising local population growth reduced working class distance in urban areas, which also became strongholds of support for Labour. Migration alters social identity and creates political cleavages. |
| JEL: | D72 J61 N33 Z10 |
| Date: | 2026–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:34721 |
| By: | Guillouet, Louise; Martimort, David |
| Abstract: | This paper develops a model of niche lobbying in which interest groups endogenously specialize in the acquisition of distinct types of policy-relevant information. Contrary to the view that niche strategies are chosen to soften competition and secure autonomy, we show that specialization arises as a self-enforcing equilibrium even though groups would prefer to compete over the same informational dimensions. The mechanism is demand-driven: when information acquisition is private and nonverifiable, the decision-maker’s inference from silence intensifies informational pressure on specialized groups, increasing the burden of information acquisition. We discuss the implications of these results for interest groups influence in climate and biodiversity policy. |
| Keywords: | Lobbying, Information Acquisition, Niche Expertise, Hard Information Communication, Specialization |
| JEL: | D72 D82 D83 |
| Date: | 2026–01–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tse:wpaper:131356 |