Democracy in Hard Times: Economic Shocks, Social Capital and Voting Patterns

26 August 2020, Version 1
This content is an early or alternative research output and has not been peer-reviewed at the time of posting.

Abstract

In this paper, I study the economic and social network determinants of anti-establishment voting patterns in advanced democracies. More specifically, I investigate how economic shocks and social capital jointly affect voting for non-mainstream parties. I expect that economic downturns should favor the electoral success of anti-establishment parties. In order to test the effect of economic shocks I employ a novel dataset on layoffs at the regional level (the European Restructuring Dataset). On the other hand, I also expect that social capital should reduce the vote for anti-establishment parties. Especially so when a higher density of local social networks is associated with greater provision of local public goods. In addition, I expect an interaction between these two factors by which regional social capital should moderate the effect of economic shocks on anti-establishment parties. I exploit individual-survey data aggregated at the European-region level matched with the layoffs regional data.

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