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on Positive Political Economics |
| By: | S. Nageeb Ali; Maximilian Mihm; Lucas Siga |
| Abstract: | This paper offers a strategic rationale for zero-sum thinking in elections. We show that asymmetric information and distributional considerations together make voters wary of policies supported by others. This force impels a majority of voters to support policies contrary to their preferences and information. Our analysis identifies and interprets a form of "adverse correlation" that is necessary and sufficient for zero-sum thinking to prevail in equilibrium. |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2409.15946 |
| By: | Thakur, Dhanaraj; Finkel, Müge |
| Abstract: | Women, and women of color in particular, face numerous challenges when running for political office in the U.S. These include attacks they are subject to in various online spaces that, like their peers, they must use to campaign and promote their work. These attacks often aim to undermine and prevent women’s participation in politics. These forms of abuse might contribute to the underrepresentation of women of color in politics, and may also undermine the effectiveness of the US democratic system in reflecting the interest and priorities of all voters in policy-making. In this research brief, we turn to the 2024 U.S. elections to examine the nature of offensive speech and hate speech that candidates running for Congress are subject to on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter), which remains an important forum for political candidates. More specifically, we compare the levels of offensive speech and hate speech that different groups of Congressional candidates are targeted with based on race and gender, with a particular emphasis on women of color. We also examine these factors for U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris as a woman of color and presidential candidate. |
| Date: | 2024–10–02 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:d78zk |
| By: | Butler, Abdur-Rahman (Monash University) |
| Abstract: | Over the last 40 years, populist leaders have been elected, as heads of government, to at least 27 of the world’s 105 electoral democracies. With most of these successful election bids occurring in the last two decades, researchers have had to expeditiously update their intuitions of the political phenomena, retrofitting new concepts and assumptions to a literature once illprepared for non-Latin American manifestations of populist governance. Leveraging this new, generalised understanding of populism, my paper aims to analyse the economic causes of populism through a globalised, rather than regionalist, description of the phenomena. In particular, I attempt to draw parallels between our updated understanding of populism and Brazil’s 2018 election of right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro. Grounding my analysis in this recent example, I introduce a two-way fixed effects logistic model to estimate the relationship between macroeconomic variables and the successful election of populist heads of government more broadly. This is performed on a panel of 105 countries between the years 1980-2020. Finding limited evidence for a relationship between variables typically associated with populist success – namely, austerity, unemployment and globalisation – my research casts some doubt towards the generalisability of past European and Latin American explanations of the causes of populism. Nonetheless, my model does find a statistically significant relationship between annual GDP growth and the likelihood of a populist being elected, with a 1% increase in GDP reducing the odds of a populist being elected by 12.5%, within the next zero to five years. |
| Keywords: | Political Economy ; Fiscal Policy ; Populism ; Brazil JEL classifications: P000 ; E620 ; P520 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:wrkesp:76 |
| By: | Choi, Dahyun; Lee, Kyuwon |
| Abstract: | Although there are public concerns about the declining capacity of regulatory agencies and its impact on regulatory outcomes, such decline could also lead regulated firms to disengage themselves from politics. We examine whether and how firms reduce their campaign contributions in response to decreases in state-level regulatory capacity. To do so, we collect original datasets on the workforce size of U.S. state environmental agencies and leverage variations in workforce shocks that arise from the gap between actual and appropriated workforce sizes. Our analysis reveals that state environmental agencies' workforce shocks decrease firms' donations to state legislators, particularly to those in the majority party and the Democratic party, but do not affect firms' contributions to their ideological allies. We also find that existing state-level restrictions on corporate donations do not moderate firms' political responsiveness. Overall, this article provides a nuanced picture of how diminishing regulatory capacity could shape corporate political activities. |
| Date: | 2024–09–23 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:ymqds |
| By: | Javier Cembrano; Jos\'e Correa; Gonzalo D\'iaz; Victor Verdugo |
| Abstract: | How to elect the representatives in legislative bodies is a question that every modern democracy has to answer. This design task has to consider various elements so as to fulfill the citizens' expectations and contribute to the maintenance of a healthy democracy. The notion of proportionality, in that the support of a given idea in the house should be nearly proportional to its support in the general public, lies at the core of this design task. In the last decades, demographic aspects beyond political support have been incorporated by requiring that they are also fairly represented in the body, giving rise to a multidimensional version of the apportionment problem. In this work, we provide an axiomatic justification for a recently proposed notion of multidimensional proportionality and extend it to encompass two relevant constraints often used in electoral systems: a threshold on the number of votes that a list needs in order to be eligible and the election of the most-voted candidate in each district. We then build upon these results to design methods based on multidimensional proportionality. We use the Chilean Constitutional Convention election (May 15-16, 2021) results as a testing ground -- where the dimensions are given by political lists, districts, and genders -- and compare the apportionment obtained under each method according to three criteria: proportionality, representativeness, and voting power. While local and global methods exhibit a natural trade-off between local and global proportionality, including the election of most-voted candidates on top of methods based on 3-dimensional proportionality allows us to incorporate both notions while ensuring higher levels of representativeness and a balanced voting power. |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2410.03304 |
| By: | Qin, Ruilang (Warwick University) |
| Abstract: | Political polarisation has become a prevalent phenomenon in the past decades. Parallelly, citizens have increasingly resorted to collective actions to demand change, resulting in incidents such as the Jan 6 US Capitol riot. Evidence suggests that such public remonstrations exacerbated the extent of opinion divergence. This paper therefore presents a model that explains the dynamic connection between political polarisation and collective actions. In the setup, voting, abstention, and participation in collective actions are novelly modelled as individual components of a citizen’s political toolkit. With endogenous voter preferences alone, polarisation has an exacerbating but limited effect on the level of collective actions. In turn, collective actions accelerate the process of polarisation for the election-losing partisans, creating asymmetry in the voter distribution. It is only when combined with strategic behaviour of the parties that polarisation may lead to substantially intensified collective actions. |
| Keywords: | political polarisation ; collective actions ; electoral contest JEL classifications: D72 ; D74 |
| Date: | 2024 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:wrkesp:77 |
| By: | McDonald, Jared (University of Maryland); Safarpour, Alauna (Gettysburg College); Hanmer, Michael J.; Bryant, Lisa A. |
| Abstract: | Election integrity is paramount in a healthy democracy. The American system places the responsibility of essential election administration functions, such as cleaning lists of registered voters as people change addresses, move across state lines, or pass away, with state and local officials. To overcome this collective action problem, the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) was created as a collaboration between states, whereby members share administrative data to ensure clean voter registration lists and encourage individuals who are eligible but unregistered (EBUs) to register to vote. Through experiments in partnership with ERIC member states, researchers found that contact from state officials increased registration and turnout among EBUs. Despite ERIC’s primary focus on maintaining the accuracy of voter rolls, it was criticized in early 2022 by conservatives, who accused it of being a tool for partisan electioneering. In the aftermath of this criticism, nine Republican-led states left ERIC, prompting concerns that this would make election administration more difficult. We assess the validity of these attacks and provide strong evidence that contributes to the debate about whether mobilizing the unregistered population produces partisan advantage. By leveraging field experiments conducted by ERIC member states during the 2016 election in Pennsylvania and Nevada (two important swing states), we find that ERIC’s efforts had little differential effect on party registration or turnout. We discuss the importance of efforts to provide states with tools to maintain clean voter rolls and to connect with eligible, but hard-to-reach potential voters who often get ignored by campaigns. |
| Date: | 2024–09–17 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:7wr8q |
| By: | Straus, Graham |
| Abstract: | Is local politics shaped by groups and interests or party and ideology? Classic literature posits that local politics differs from national politics and centers on groups and interests rather than ideology, especially in settings with nonpartisan elections. A separate literature casts doubt on this, finding a connection between partisan voting, local ideology, and policy mimicking the federal level and without reference to groups and interests. In this paper, I use a large original dataset on the professional backgrounds of city councilors to provide a link between the evidence for both theories. I look at city council candidates from all 477 cities in California between 1996 and 2021, observing both candidates’ career histories through their ballot designations and party affiliations through their public voter records. I find that liberal cities have more career politicians, non-profit workers, and service based professionals running for and holding office, while conservative cities have more military and law enforcement workers and business types running for and holding office. Career politicians, non-profit workers, and service based professionals are more likely to be registered as Democrats and military and law enforcement workers and business types are more likely to be registered Republicans. In this case group membership and party affiliation are tightly coupled. |
| Date: | 2024–09–30 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:38evc |
| By: | Alma Cohen; Rajeev H. Dehejia |
| Abstract: | We examine how politicization and polarization influence judicial review within U.S. Federal appellate courts. Analyzing over 400, 000 cases from 1985 to 2020, we find that judges' political alignment or misalignment with trial judges increasingly affect their decisions, particularly in the last two decades. This trend is significant in precedential cases: panels of Democratic judges are 6.9 percentage points more likely to reverse Republican trial judges compared to Democratic ones, whereas Republican panels are 3.6 percentage points less likely to reverse fellow Republican judges. This effect persists across ideological and non-ideological cases and even among judges appointed before 2000. |
| JEL: | H0 K0 |
| Date: | 2024–09 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:32920 |
| By: | Costanza Sartoris (Dept. of Management, Venice School of Management, Università Ca' Foscari Venice); Sasha Piccione (Dept. of Management, Venice School of Management, Università Ca' Foscari Venice); Caterina Cruciani (Dept. of Management, Venice School of Management, Università Ca' Foscari Venice) |
| Abstract: | Social media’s architecture, through affordances, plays an important role in influencing the impact platforms have on political discourse. A unique case in the social media realm is Wikipedia, which, after more than 20 years, is still an active and flourishing community, thanks to its affordances and the social dynamics they entail. In this paper we aim to study how Wikipedia’s volunteers (i.e., contributors), with different motives to participate in the project, use and perceive Wikipedia’s affordances to shed light on how trust, as well as trustworthiness, are crucial determinants for the positive political result of Wikipedia’s “selforganizing bureaucracy.” We do so by leveraging on a large survey dataset with 9, 282 Wikipedia’s contributors’ self-reported behaviours and propensities. We explore how different motivations coexist in relationship to trust in the whole system thanks to the affordances it entails, as we believe that it is trust in the system that has been crucial for Wikipedia’s positive survival so far, which, by design, can be assimilated to a public agora. |
| Keywords: | Wikipedia, Social Media, Democracy, Affordance, Trust |
| Date: | 2024–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:vnm:wpdman:214 |
| By: | Aluykov, Maxim (King's College London); Gilev, Aleksei; Nadporozhskii, Ilia (University of Wisconsin-Madison); Vyrskaia, Marina; Rumiantseva, Aleksandra; Zavadskaya, Margarita (University of Helsinki) |
| Abstract: | The Panel Study of Russian Public Opinion and Attitudes (PROPA) report, based on surveys conducted in Summer 2024, examines the evolving views of Russian citizens amidst the ongoing war in Ukraine, economic challenges, and ongoing political repression. This wave of research, conducted both online and via telephone, gathers insights from a wide demographic cross-section of Russian society, with 4, 470 participants in the online survey (June 28 - July 25, 2024) and 1, 603 respondents in the telephone interviews (June 13 - 24, 2024). The study explores economic perceptions, political attitudes, religious beliefs, and historical memories shaping public opinion. Key findings include: 1. Economic Satisfaction and Support for the Regime: A significant portion of respondents express satisfaction with their economic situation, which correlates with support for the war in Ukraine and President Putin’s leadership. The data suggest that those with higher economic satisfaction tend to favor strong presidential power without checks and balances. 2. Political Attitudes: Public support for the ongoing war in Ukraine remains polarized, with 42.6% of online respondents supporting the war, while opposition is more pronounced in the online format than in telephone surveys. The report also highlights declining trust in key political institutions, though a substantial portion of the population still supports authoritarian governance structures. 3. Religious Influence: Religious beliefs, particularly among those with higher religiosity, play a notable role in shaping political opinions. Religious individuals are more likely to support conservative political stances, which align with the regime’s narrative. 4. Memory of the Past: Historical events, including family experiences with World War II, the war in Afghanistan, and Stalinist repressions, influence public attitudes toward the war in Ukraine. Those with personal or familial ties to these events are more likely to support current military actions. Overall, the findings reflect a society under strain, with significant pockets of dis- content, especially among younger and less affluent citizens, but with ongoing support for the regime among economically secure and religious segments of the population. The research offers a nuanced view of how historical memory, economic well-being, and political repression interact in the wartime Russia. |
| Date: | 2024–09–17 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:osfxxx:g4an5 |
| By: | Mikael Elinder; Oscar Erixson; Olle Hammar |
| Abstract: | Using individual-level data from Gallup World Poll and the Levada Center, we provide an in-depth analysis of how Russia's invasion of Ukraine has affected sentiments in the Russian population. Our results show that after the invasion, a larger share of Russians expressed support for President Putin, optimism about the future, anti-West attitudes, and lower migration aspirations. The 2022 mobilization and the 2023 Wagner rebellion had only short-lived and no effects on sentiments, respectively. Regions with low pre-war support for Putin displayed stronger rally effects, higher casualty rates, and increased incomes, suggesting a recruitment strategy that maximizes political support. Taken together, our results suggest strong public support for the war, except among Russians abroad who became more critical of Putin in line with global views. |
| Date: | 2024–10 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:arx:papers:2410.00663 |
| By: | Wintemute, Garen J.; Crawford, Andrew; Tomsich, Elizabeth A.; Pear, Veronica A. |
| Abstract: | Background: In 2022, a nationally representative longitudinal survey in the USA found concerningly high prevalences of support for and personal willingness to engage in political violence, but those prevalences decreased in 2023. This study examines changes in those prevalences from 2023 to 2024, an election year in the USA. Methods: Participants were members of Ipsos KnowledgePanel. Wave 3 of the survey was conducted May 23-June 14, 2024; invitations to participate were sent to all respondents to prior waves who remained in KnowledgePanel. Outcomes are expressed as weighted proportions. Year-to-year change is based on the means of aggregated individual change scores, which have a potential range from 0 (no change) to ±2. Results: The 2024 completion rates were 88.4% (8896 respondents/10, 064 invitees) overall, 91.6% (8185 respondents/8932 invitees) for invitees in 2024 who had responded in 2023, and 62.8% (711 respondents/1132 invitees) for invitees in 2024 who had responded in 2022 but not in 2023. After weighting, 50.9% (95% confidence interval (CI) 49.5%, 52.3%) were female; weighted mean (SD) age was 48.5 (24.9) years. From 2023 to 2024, the prevalence of the view that violence was usually or always justified to advance at least 1 political objective did not change (2024: 26.2%, 95% CI 25.0%, 27.5%; 2023: 25.3%, 95% CI 24.1%, 26.5%). There were no changes from 2023 to 2024 in willingness to damage property, threaten a person, injure a person, or kill a person in an act of political violence, and no changes in expectations of firearm use in situations where respondents considered political violence justifiable. Changes on other measures were infrequent (17 of 58 comparisons in the main analysis) and small where they occurred (with 2 exceptions, change < 0.05). Conclusions: Contrary to expectation, support for and willingness to participate in political violence in this cohort showed little to no change from 2023 to 2024, an election year in the USA. These findings can help guide prevention efforts. |
| Date: | 2024–10–04 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:6crkf |
| By: | Marwil J. Dávila-Fernández; Christian Proaño; Serena Sordi |
| Abstract: | The ongoing transformation of the social base supporting political choices in highincome countries is happening in the context of raising demand for more significant efforts to reduce carbon emissions. Our research question lies in the intersection between these two major themes. We develop a heterogeneous agents behavioural macro model that differentiates between left- and right-wing voting preferences in two main political dimensions: economic-distributive and socio-cultural. A continuous-time version of the discrete-choice approach describes the composition of the population over time. The model is compatible with the emergence of “left-left”, “left-right”, “rightleft”, and “right-right” coalitions, each associated with a skill premium and carbon taxes or subsidies. Human capital accumulation results in a wage differential that influences production and feedback on inequality. Through induced technical change, taxing emissions influences the development of carbon-neutral production techniques, impacting output and ultimately feeding political attitudes. We numerically study the implications of secularisation and the asymmetric effects of carbon taxes on low/highskilled workers to green transition. It is shown that achieving absolute decoupling is a two-part problem. Reaching a consensus for implementing a carbon tax is only the first step. A sufficiently strong element of induced technical change favouring carbonneutral production techniques is also necessary to avoid reducing living standards |
| Keywords: | Political cleavages; Climate change; Inequality; Human capital; Carbon tax |
| JEL: | C62 D72 Q01 Q54 |
| Date: | 2024–01 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:usi:wpaper:909 |