Cambridge Studies in Public Opinion and Political Psychology
2 total works
Who votes for radical right parties and why? This book argues that the increasing popularity of the radical right in Europe originates in community bonds: strong ties to one's locality motivate support for the radical right. These parties use nostalgic themes and symbolic politicking to idealize community, defend local autonomy, and ultimately draw local identity into the electoral realm. While other explanations of the radical right's popularity typify supporters as victims of macro-economic shifts and strains, the author's account explores people's day-to-day experiences that link local connections to political decisions. The analysis also raises questions about the political implications of different formal authority structures such as the level and nature of power devolved to local units. The localist model of radical right support illuminates the psychological, social, and institutional conditions and processes that render people's feelings about their cities, towns, and villages relevant for politics.
Partisan Families
by Alan S. Zuckerman, Josip Dasovic, and Jennifer Fitzgerald
Published 9 July 2007
People decide about political parties by taking into account the preferences, values, expectations, and perceptions of their family, friends, colleagues, and neighbours. As most people live with others, members of their households influence each other's political decisions. How and what they think about politics and what they do are the outcomes of social processes. Applying varied statistical models to data from extensive German and British household surveys, this book shows that wives and husbands influence each other; young adults influence their parents, especially their mothers. Wives and mothers sit at the centre of households: their partisanship influences the partisanship of everyone else, and the others affect them. Politics in households interacts with competition among the political parties to sustain bounded partisanship. People ignore one of the major parties and vary their preference of its major rival over time. Election campaigns reinforce these choices.