Andrej Kokkonen

Delivering Stability—Primogeniture and Autocratic Survival in European Monarchies 1000-1800

Building a strong autocratic state requires stability in ruler-elite relations. From this perspective the absence of a successor is problematic, as the elite have few incentives to remain loyal if the autocrat cannot reward them for their loyalty after his death. However, an appointed successor has both the capacity and the motive to challenge the autocrat. We argue that a succession based on primogeniture solves the dilemma, by providing the regime with a successor who can afford to wait to inherit the throne peacefully. We test our hypothesis on a dataset covering 961 monarchs ruling 42 European states between 1000 and 1800, and show that fewer monarchs were deposed in states practicing primogeniture than in states practicing alternative succession orders. A similar pattern persists in the worlds remaining absolute monarchies. Primogeniture also contributed to building strong states: In 1801 all European monarchies had adopted primogeniture or succumbed to foreign enemies.

The gender gap in populist radical-right voting: examining the demand side in Western and Eastern Europe

ABSTRACT In most countries, men are more likely to vote for parties of the populist radical right (PRR) than women. The authors argue here that there are two mechanisms that might potentially explain this gender gap: mediation (womens attitudes and characteristics differ from mens in ways that explain the PRR vote) and moderation (women vote for different reasons than men). They apply these two mechanisms to general theories of support for PRR parties—the socio-structural model, the discontent model, and the policy vote model—and test these on a large sample of voters in seventeen Western and Eastern European countries. The study shows that the gender gap is produced by a combination of moderation and mediation. Socio-structural differences between men and women exist, but the extent to which they explain the gender gap is limited, and primarily restricted to post-Communist countries. Furthermore, women generally do not differ from men in their level of nativism, authoritarianism or discontent with democracy. Among women, however, these attitudes are less strongly related to a radical-right vote. This suggests that men consider the issues of the radical right to be more salient, but also that these parties deter women for reasons other than the content of their political programme. While the existing research has focused almost exclusively on mediation, we show that moderation and mediation contribute almost equally to the gender gap.

Migration-based Ethnic Diversity and Social Trust: A Multilevel Analysis of How Country, Neighbourhood and Workplace Diversity Affects Social Trust in 22 Countries

How does ethnic diversity affect social trust? The Conflict and the Contact hypotheses represent the main competing views. This paper argues that the “true” answer to the question is contingent upon the social unit under study. More specifically, we argue that the former hypothesis is favored by a focus on social units where intergroup contacts can be avoided, whereas the latter hypothesis is supported by a focus on social units where intergroup contacts are unavoidable and supported by higher authorities. Studies that fail to acknowledge this fact by neglecting to take both types of social units into account risk biasing their results. Departing from this argument, the paper presents simultaneous estimates of diversity-effects in social units where people can avoid intergroup contacts (countries and neighborhoods) and social units where intergroup contacts cannot be avoided (workplaces). The results, which are based on the first round of the European Social Survey, covering 30000 individuals from 22 countries, show support for the Conflict hypothesis when the social unit under study is countries and neighborhoods and support for the Contact hypothesis when the social unit is workplaces. We also show that failure to take the latter positive effect into account leads to that the negative country diversity effect is underestimated.

Adapting to party lines: the effect of party affiliation on attitudes to immigration

Abstract Public opinion on immigration is increasingly relevant for political behaviour. However, little is known about the way in which citizens’ political allegiances in turn shape their attitudes to immigration. Abundant existing evidence suggests that voters often take cues from the parties they support. Using panel data from the Netherlands and Sweden, this article investigates the dynamic relation between attitudes to immigration and party preferences. The longitudinal nature of the data allows for making stronger claims about causal mechanisms than previous cross-sectional studies. The analysis shows that voters who change their preference to the Radical Right become stricter on immigration, whereas voters changing to the Greens become less strict on immigration over time. This confirms that citizens’ support for anti- and pro-immigration parties results in a ‘radicalisation’ of their views on immigration along party lines. A similar ‘spiral’ of radicalisation can be found around the issue of European integration.

Women’s Presence in Politics and Male Politicians Commitment to Gender Equality in Politics: Evidence from 290 Swedish Local Councils

ABSTRACT This article provides the first comprehensive empirical test of how women’s presence in politics affects male politicians’ attitudes toward gender equality as an abstract ideal and their personal willingness to strive for women’s interests. Using a unique survey of all 13,000 locally elected politicians in Sweden (response rate 63 percent), we find a negative association between a greater presence of women and male politicians’ personal willingness to strive for women’s interests. However, there is no such effect on male politicians’ support for gender equality as an abstract ideal. We argue that the found pattern can likely be explained by the fact that it may be costly for male politicians to personally strive for women’s interests, whereas it does not cost them anything to commit to gender equality as an abstract ideal.

Gender Differences in Vote Choice: Social Cues and Social Harmony as Heuristics

Some parties are more popular among men, while other parties attract more female voters. This article proposes that these differences can be partially explained by two recurring gender differences in the socio-psychological literature. It argues that men’s generally lower sensitivity to social cues makes them more likely to vote for stigmatized and small parties, whereas women’s greater concern with social harmony is expected to make them less likely to vote for extreme parties. The models are tested at the individual and party levels using three waves of Comparative Study of Electoral Systems data from twenty-eight countries. Ceteris paribus, men are more likely than women to vote for parties that are socially stigmatized or ideologically extreme. This has consequences for the current understanding of gender gaps in voting, and reiterates that voting has important social aspects.

Contact in context: does intergroup contact function (better) in high-threat contexts?

ABSTRACT Are interpersonal contacts effective in reducing group threat and prejudice in all contexts? Studies have found that the contact effect is stronger in regions and countries where large immigrant populations contribute to high levels of contextual group threat This paper tests the robustness of the observed positive association between contextual-level group threat and contact effects by identifying three methodological reasons for why the association might be spurious: (1) a potential omitted variable bias; (2) a potential self-selection effect; and (3) a potential ceiling effect. Using the 2002 European Social Survey, we find that the positive association is indeed robust. We interpret this as evidence that contact effects are strongest in those European contexts where the need for improved intergroup relations between immigrants and natives is most dire.

Measuring Immigrant Populations: Subjective versus Objective Assessments

Innumeracy amongst survey respondents in estimating a country’s immigrant population is a well-known problem for the social sciences (Herda 2010; Nadeau et al 1993). In general, individuals, especially if they are prejudiced against or perceive immigrants as a threat, are predisposed to overestimate the immigrant population at the country level. If this tendency can be generalized to other contexts such as neighborhoods, research that use subjective assessments of immigrant populations at lower levels of inquiry might be biased. Using survey data from Sweden, this paper compares individuals’ subjective assessments of the immigrant population in their neighborhoods with actual register/census data. The results show that subjective assessments correlate at least moderately with objective assessments. In contrast to previous research, we find that, under control for the objective number of immigrants in their neighborhood, prejudiced people bias their response by giving lower estimates of the number of immigrants in their neighborhoods. Finally, we show that the subjective measurement tend to yield analogous effects to the objective measurement in regression models when predicting generalized trust. However, when predicting attitudes towards immigrants, the objective and subjective measurements render somewhat disparate results. Overall, our results point to that the subjective assessment of immigrant populations should be used with some caution, especially if the interest is attitudes and prejudice towards immigrant.