Arndt Leininger

@deutschlandfunk.de.web.brid.gy Interviewer fragt, ob die AfD nicht tatsächlich eine Partei der Mitte sei. Journalismus am Limit.

New in @govandopp.bsky.social (open access) "Explaining the Positions of Political Parties Towards Direct Democracy" Citizens in many democracies want more direct democracy, but reforms lag behind. Why? I look at the actors who would have to share power: parties. 🧵 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Takeaway: the gap between citizen demand and reform reflects the strategic logic of party competition as much as principle. Reform needs the large governing parties, and they are least keen exactly when they could act. 10/

New in @govandopp.bsky.social (open access) "Explaining the Positions of Political Parties Towards Direct Democracy" Citizens in many democracies want more direct democracy, but reforms lag behind. Why? I look at the actors who would have to share power: parties. 🧵 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Challenger parties (those that have not yet governed) support direct democracy much more than mainstream parties. But looking within parties over time, they don't drop the issue after entering government for the first time. 8/

New in @govandopp.bsky.social (open access) "Explaining the Positions of Political Parties Towards Direct Democracy" Citizens in many democracies want more direct democracy, but reforms lag behind. Why? I look at the actors who would have to share power: parties. 🧵 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Regression analyses show that left-of-center manifestos contain significantly more supporting sentences than those of the centrist parties. Right-of-center parties also exceed the center, but by a smaller margin. Populism adds support beyond what left-right positioning predicts. 6/

New in @govandopp.bsky.social (open access) "Explaining the Positions of Political Parties Towards Direct Democracy" Citizens in many democracies want more direct democracy, but reforms lag behind. Why? I look at the actors who would have to share power: parties. 🧵 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

First finding: when parties mention direct democracy, they are almost always in favor. About 75% of sentences are supportive; fewer than 5% are opposed. Skeptical parties don't argue against it. They stay silent, as salience theory predicts. Over time, the topic gains traction. 4/

New in @govandopp.bsky.social (open access) "Explaining the Positions of Political Parties Towards Direct Democracy" Citizens in many democracies want more direct democracy, but reforms lag behind. Why? I look at the actors who would have to share power: parties. 🧵 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

The idea: parties can back direct democracy for two kinds of reasons. Ideological: the left favors wider participation; populists invoke popular sovereignty. Instrumental: challenger and opposition parties gain a route to policy influence that governing parties don't need. 2/

The Encyclopedia of Polarization has just received its latest update! We (@aleininger.bsky.social, @felixgruenewald.bsky.social and our RA Tom Anderer) have expanded our collection on polarization research. You can find the newest entries on polarization.wiki and some of them listed below:

... or "Interpersonal political discussion and affective polarization: Comparative evidence from 41 elections and five panel studies" by @marianotorcal.bsky.social and Paul A. Beck, published in Electoral Studies polarization.wiki/usecases/tor...

The Encyclopedia of Polarization has just received its latest update! We (@aleininger.bsky.social, @felixgruenewald.bsky.social and our RA Tom Anderer) have expanded our collection on polarization research. You can find the newest entries on polarization.wiki and some of them listed below:

🧵 Just accepted @thejop.bsky.social, with @tswalve.bsky.social "What's in a name? Name recognition, place-based identities, and candidate success" Voters prefer local candidates. But how do they know who's local? Often simply from the name on the ballot👇 www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Why this matters: friends-and-neighbors voting and electoral discrimination against minority candidates are usually studied separately. We show both can stem from the same mechanism, a continuum running from local to generic to other-region to foreign names.

🧵 Just accepted @thejop.bsky.social, with @tswalve.bsky.social "What's in a name? Name recognition, place-based identities, and candidate success" Voters prefer local candidates. But how do they know who's local? Often simply from the name on the ballot👇 www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Who reacts most? Rural respondents and those born near where they live, i.e., those with stronger ties to place.

🧵 Just accepted @thejop.bsky.social, with @tswalve.bsky.social "What's in a name? Name recognition, place-based identities, and candidate success" Voters prefer local candidates. But how do they know who's local? Often simply from the name on the ballot👇 www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Study 2: a survey in six German regions. Can people actually spot local names? Yes. The more concentrated a surname is in their region, the more respondents classify it as local.

🧵 Just accepted @thejop.bsky.social, with @tswalve.bsky.social "What's in a name? Name recognition, place-based identities, and candidate success" Voters prefer local candidates. But how do they know who's local? Often simply from the name on the ballot👇 www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Result: local names win votes. With year, party & constituency fixed effects, a local name is worth about 1 pp of the candidate vote, more than being born in the constituency and close to the bonus of a doctorate. Robust to controls for birthplace, residence, and name frequency.

🧵 Just accepted @thejop.bsky.social, with @tswalve.bsky.social "What's in a name? Name recognition, place-based identities, and candidate success" Voters prefer local candidates. But how do they know who's local? Often simply from the name on the ballot👇 www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Our argument: surnames cluster regionally. Jansen sounds northern German, Obermaier Bavarian, Müller or Schmidt could be from anywhere. A name typical for your region signals "one of us" (in-group favoritism); a foreign-sounding one signals "not one of us" (out-group bias).

🧵 Just accepted @thejop.bsky.social, with @tswalve.bsky.social "What's in a name? Name recognition, place-based identities, and candidate success" Voters prefer local candidates. But how do they know who's local? Often simply from the name on the ballot👇 www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

 📢 A new resource for referendum research is now online! We're excited to launch RefSurv – an infrastructure for facilitating comparative research on referendum voting. 🔎📊 Explore it here: referendumsurveys.org 1/

RefSurv is just getting started, and we hope it grows into a genuinely useful resource for everyone working on referendum voting and comparative research. Follow along as we keep adding data! 🗳️ 4/

 📢 A new resource for referendum research is now online! We're excited to launch RefSurv – an infrastructure for facilitating comparative research on referendum voting. 🔎📊 Explore it here: referendumsurveys.org 1/

Finding comparable survey data on referendum voting can be surprisingly difficult. RefSurv brings together referendum-related surveys, information on the respective referendums, and examples of research using this data — making it easier to discover what exists and how it's been used. 🔬🌍 2/

We (@felixgruenewald.bsky.social and our RA Tom Anderer) have once again updated our Encyclopedia of Polarization! The update features several new contributions on polarization research. You can find the newest entries on polarization.wiki and some of them listed below:

For instance, "Polarized Equality? Ideological and Affective Divides Over Gender Equality in Europe" by @cyrillotteni.bsky.social polarization.wiki/usecases/ott...