New working paper!
I examine whether exposure to local unemployment during adolescence shapes immigration attitudes in adulthood, focusing on the long-term imprint of early economic insecurity
doi.org/10.31235/osf...
💸🚨I am hiring 2 Postdocs for my ERC-funded project SOCDEBT on #debt dynamics across countries. One position: #SocialStratification + strong quantitative skills. The other: qualitative research and #EconomicSociology. waitkus.github.io/SOCDEBT/ 🚨💸
Excited to welcome the fabulous @tinepaulsen.bsky.social today at our Politics Lecture Series at @humboldtuni.bsky.social. Come and join us!
🚨New publication! Thrilled to finally see this paper out in @psrm.bsky.social 🎉
📊I study how gender shapes coalition preferences among politicians. Turns out mayors prefer forming governments with women-led parties, perceiving them as better communicators and more competent governors.
Here's a short write-up of our recently published study:
📰"What People Really Think About Taxing the Rich – the surprising beliefs behind progressive taxation"
TLDR: Most believe taxing the rich brings equality & growth! Elite fears are not shared.
www.cambridge.org/core/blog/20...
..and here a longer thread and link to the original study
bsky.app/profile/beck...
Here's a short write-up of our recently published study:
📰"What People Really Think About Taxing the Rich – the surprising beliefs behind progressive taxation"
TLDR: Most believe taxing the rich brings equality & growth! Elite fears are not shared.
www.cambridge.org/core/blog/20...
Very excited about Alexander De Juan's talk today in the Politics Lecture Series! Topic is "Devolving the Monopoly on Violence."
🗓️Today, 12-1pm, Room 002, ISW.
Stop by, if you're interested!
➡️ In sum, our study suggests that attitude polarization constitutes a central barrier to the political viability of UBI. However, progress might be achieved by addressing key concerns of opponents or pursuing more limited basic income schemes that nevertheless exceed current welfare arrangements.
☝️Asked about their reasoning, respondents strongly draw on social justice arguments. While opponents fear repercussions for labor markets and fiscal policy, proponents are hopeful about welfare state modernization and liberty promotion.
📊 A conjoint analysis shows that proponents and opponents disagree strongly about key features of UBI – its generosity, unconditionality, and financing. Common ground only exists for limited basic income scheme that deviate little from existing welfare institutions.
📧 Ahead of a basic income campaign in a German city, we survey residents about their attitudes towards UBI. To identify polarization we distinguish proponents and opponents of the policy and analyze where and why their attitudes diverge.
🚨New publication @ Journal of European Social Policy
Despite its popularity, the political will to advance Universal Basic Income is limited. Together with @hannaschwander.bsky.social, we argue that attitude polarization severely constrains the political viability of UBI.
The full article is available here #openaccess
doi.org/10.1080/1350...
⚡Overall, our study shows that memory policy -even if it challenges majority groups- must not always produce a backlash and can strengthen progressive forces.
It also calls for more attention to context and policy cycles, underlining the importance of national histories and temporal dynamics.
🗳️ Using fine-grained election data and a difference-in-differences analysis, we show that the report also changed electoral fortunes. In districts with antisemitic streets, where exposure is arguably stronger, left-wing parties perform better than their right-wing counterparts following the report.
🔬 Our survey experiment shows that information about the report induces feelings of guilt among left-wing respondents, greater support for the renaming of antisemitic streets as well as other memory policies. And importantly, no evidence of backlash among center or right-wing voters!
🛣️ At the center of our study is a 2021-report that identified 290 antisemitic streets all across Berlin and proposed the renaming of most. Backed by the city government, the report stirred a controversial debate in Berlin and beyond.
💡We argue that memory policies, in particular the de-commemoration of majority group figures, affect public opinion and voting behavior, even before their adoption. We provide causal evidence from a survey experiment and a difference-in-differences analysis of localized election data.
🥳 New year, new publication
📑"Contested memories: the political effects of de-commemoration proposals" @jeppjournal.bsky.social
With Francesco Colombo, we study a street renaming proposal in Berlin and find -contrary to conventional wisdom- no political backlash, but a positive feedback effect.
Fascinating, thank you for sharing!
Great to see the central role of survey experiments in revolutionizing political science--makes it all the more important to maintain high-quality human samples, especially online, and address risks posed by LLMs! Otherwise I fear their fall might be just as fast..
Thanks Luca!
🚨What are the political consequences of memory policy?
In a new paper @francescocolombo.bsky.social and I show that a public initiative to rename antisemitic streets in Berlin mobilized left voters, induced no backlash, and benefited left parties in the subsequent election.
osf.io/preprints/so...
Is affective polarization rooted in ideology, identity, or both?
By using agent-based modeling in 11 datasets with N ~70,000, Jens Lange, Alex Koch, hansalves.bsky.social & myself investigate the underlying mechanisms of attitude formation in political contexts.
Accepted at PSPB, preprint here ⬇️
New Publication with @lhaffert.bsky.social in @ejprjournal.bsky.social!
We study the role of generations in the urban-rural divide, which is increasingly shaping the politics of many democracies.
Studying Switzerland, we show: The urban-rural divide is stronger among younger generations. (1/10) 🧵👇
AI presents a fundamental threat to our ability to use polls to assess public opinion. Bad actors who are able to infiltrate panels can flip close election polls for less than the cost of a Starbucks coffee. Models will also infer and confirm hypotheses in experiments. Current quality checks fail
📣 New op-ed in Süddeutsche Zeitung: What the data say about the “Brandmauer”
I summarize key findings from a study with @anninahermes.bsky.social across 57 democracies
➡️ Far-right parties don’t get weaker in government, they get stronger (~6 points by the next election)
tinyurl.com/4j6jaud2
Today at the Politics Lecture Series @humboldtuni.bsky.social
Frank Borge Wietzke (IBEI) will give a talk on "The Puzzle of Africa's 'Class Conscious' Farmers"
Join us if you are in Berlin! 12pm, ISW #002
