Projects
Ambizione grant “Regional Inequality and the Political Geography of EU Support”
Budget: 860’000 CHF
Period: 2019–2024
Collaborators: Sven Hegewald
Funding agency: Swiss National Science Foundation
This research project investigates the relationship between regional inequalities within Europe and citizens’ support for European integration. While previous research mainly focused on the role of vertical inequality (e.g., income inequality between individuals), this research project investigates how spatial inequalities (horizontal inequality) shape public support for the European Union (EU). In doing so, this project aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of the interrelationship between European integration, regional inequality, and societal preferences towards integration. Specifically, this project sheds new light on how space shapes public opinion about the EU, emphasizing the role of location for socialization and horizontal learning processes. This is a highly relevant endeavor as current challengers of European integration – such as Eurosceptic parties and secessionist movements – capitalize strongly on regional inequalities in Europe.
Appealing to the good people
Budget: 150’000 DKK
Period: 2023–2025
Collaborators: Camilla Bjarnøe, Kristina Jessen Hansen, Mads Thau
Funding body: Department of Politics and Society, Aalborg University (Seed Funding)
Parties tailor their communication in order to win public support. One way of doing so is by emphasizing valence qualities like the ability to perform or personal qualities like honesty and integrity. When communicating, parties can choose to appeal to one group rather than another or the public more broadly, yet little is known about which role valence plays compared to the established group appeals in the literature (policy-based and symbolic). We investigate this question relying on survey experiments including both in-group appeals to the working class and the upper-middle class conducted in the United States and Denmark.
Appealing to the local voter
Budget: 15’000 CHF
Period: 2021–2022
Collaborators: Lukas Haffert, Tabea Palmtag
Funding body: Center for Comparative and International Studies, ETH Zürich & IPZ Inequality Research Fund, University of Zürich
While it is increasingly well understood how citizens in urban and rural areas differ in their political preferences, we know much less about how these preferences are mobilized in the political system. Can place-based appeals be a potentially successful strategy for politicians? Does the mobilization of urban or rural voters mainly work through economic or cultural appeals? And which parties are seen as most likely to make such appeals?