I urval från Stockholms universitets publikationsdatabas

• Electoral Competition between Social Democracy and the Populist Radical Right: How Welfare Regimes Shape Electoral Outcomes

  2024. Karl Loxbo. Political Studies 72 (3), 1050-1070

  Artikel

  This study examines how the growing competition over immigration and welfare between social democratic parties and populist radical right parties impacts electoral outcomes. The study argues that the historical legacies of the social democratic and conservative welfare regimes influence how voters respond to this competitive struggle. The findings support this argument. In the social democratic regime, populist radical right parties gain more support when they compete over welfare, although Nordic social democratic parties can mitigate this trend by appearing tough on immigration. However, populist radical right parties’ emphasis on welfare is the main source of electoral mobilization, particularly among voters with anti-immigration sentiments. In the conservative regime, the competitive dynamic is less connected to immigration, and populist radical right parties’ welfare discourse appeals primarily to economically vulnerable voters, while social democratic parties lose votes by taking a strict stance on immigration. These results have important implications and suggest that welfare regimes shape voting behaviour differently today than in previous eras.

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• Social conformity or attitude persistence? The bandwagon effect and the spiral of silence in a polarized context

  2024. Mike Farjam, Karl Loxbo. Journal of Elections, Public Opinion, and Parties 34 (3), 531-551

  Artikel

  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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• Party Realignment in Western Europe: Electoral Drivers and Global Constraints

  2022. Magnus Hagevi (et al.).

  Bok

  Identifying a crisis for representative democracy in Western European party systems, this essential book studies the widening gap between political parties’ ideological economic Left–Right rhetoric. Combining in-depth theoretical analysis with empirical research, it addresses whether political party ideologies are converging or diverging, and whether these changes are initiated by the parties themselves, aligned with voter demand, or forced by economic globalization.

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• The varying logics for supporting populist right-wing welfare politics in West European welfare regimes

  2022. Karl Loxbo. European Political Science Review 14 (2), 171-187

  Artikel

  Little is known about whether and under which conditions populist radical right parties' (PRRPs') nativist welfare politics matters to the voters. I address this gap in the research and test the argument that the electoral appeal of this electoral discourse varies among welfare regimes. The study compares the conservative and social-democratic welfare regimes and focuses on the vote choices of the two core constituencies of PRRPs - economically exposed and immigration-sceptic voters. The results show that these electorates support PRRPs' nativist welfare positions for very different reasons in the two welfare regimes. First, in the conservative regime, economically exposed citizens vote for PRRPs, the more they stress nativism and welfare expansion. By contrast, in the social-democratic regime this group of voters is more likely to support positions combining nativism and dismantled welfare benefits. Second, immigrant-sceptic voters in the social-democratic regime support PRRPs who pledge to preserve the welfare state, and increased migration considerably boosts the probability that they do so. By contrast, this group of voters in the conservative regime is more likely to support PRRPs who seek to partly dismantle the welfare state, and the inflow of immigrants is unrelated to these choices. These results have important implications and suggest that welfare regimes moderate public opinion differently in the current age of populism compared to previous eras.

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