Economic Risk within the Household and Voting for the Radical Right

Thursday, November 5, 2020
10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
(Pacific)

Online via Zoom

Speaker: 
  • Tarik Abou-Chadi

 

This talk investigates how unemployment risk within households affects voting for the radical right. Recent advances in the literature demonstrate the role of latent economic threats for understanding the support of radical right parties. We build on these studies and analyze economic risks as a determinant of radical right voting. Crucially, we do not treat individuals as atomistic but investigate households as a crucial context moderating economic risks. Combining large-scale labor market data with comparative survey data, we confirm the relationship between economic risk and support for radical right parties but demonstrate that this direct effect is strongly conditioned by household risk constellations. Voting for the radical right is not only a function of a voters' own but also their partner's risk. We provide additional evidence on the extent to which these effects are gendered and on the mechanisms linking household risk and party choice. Our results imply that much of the existing literature on individual risk exposure underestimates the impact on political behavior due to the neglect of multiplier effects within households. 
 
 
Tarik Abou-Chadi

Tarik Abou-Chadi is Assistant Professor at the department of political science at the University of Zurich. His research focuses on electoral competition, political parties and democratic representation. He is currently the principal investigator of a research project on social status and the tranformation of electoral behavior in Europe. He also hosts the political science teaching and research podcast Transformation of European Politics.
 
 
 
Co-Sponsored by the Global Populisms Project.