Consider your companions carefully: How voters perceive (coalition) governments’ poor valence images?

Numerous studies of comparative political behavior examine how voters perceive parties’ ideological positions on various policy issues, either in a standard uni-dimensional space or on single issues. These studies assume these ideological positions to be representative of the entire governing coalition, classifying the government as a single unitary. While a common assumption when assessing coalition governments’ ideological positions, it is unclear whether this logic of shared accountability holds for voters’ perceptions of valence. To fill this gap, I use a conjoint experiment to assess the perceptual influence of valence issues on coalitional accountability. Overall, my results show that unlike standard left-right ideological positions, voters project the prime minister’s and (junior) cabinet members’ low valence bidirectionally onto each other. This research has implications for the prime minister’s selection process for (junior) cabinet members and junior parties’ own calculus of whether to participate in a coalition or not.

When Do Voters Respond to Campaign Finance Disclosure? Evidence from Multiple Election Types

In recent American elections political candidates have actively emphasized features of their fundraising profiles when campaigning. Yet, surprisingly, we know comparatively little about how financial information affects vote choice specifically, whether effects differ across types of election, and how robust any effects are to other relevant political signals. Using a series of conjoint experiment designs, I compare the effects of campaigns’ financial profiles on vote choice across direct democratic and representative elections, randomizing subjects’ exposure to additional political cues. I find that while the financial profile of candidates can affect vote choice, these effects are drowned out by non-financial signals. In ballot initiative races, the explicit policy focus of the election appears to swamp any effect of financial information. This paper is the first to explore the comparative effects of financial disclosure across election type, contributing to our understanding of how different heuristics interact across electoral contexts.

Public support for climate adaptation aid and migrants: a conjoint experiment in Japan

We examine public support in Japan for overseas climate adaptation assistance via foreign aid and accepting immigrants. Using a survey-embedded conjoint experiment (N=2,815), we focus on seven attributes of an adaptation policy package: (1) the continent in which the country is located; (2) the types of extreme weather event this country faces; (3) the volume of climate aid; (4) the number of climate migrants (5) Japanese exports; (6) Japanese imports, (7) the country’s record of voting with Japan in the United Nations. We find that while respondents are indifferent to aid volume, their support diminishes as the number of migrants increases. Moreover, support is higher for Asian countries, that provide export markets, vote with Japan, and where the effects of climate change are gradual. Importantly, we find that public support is not influenced by benchmarking of Japan’s or peer G7 countries’ past aid or immigration levels.

Brexit Dilemmas: Shaping Postwithdrawal Relations with a Leaving State

How do voters want their governments to respond when another country unilaterally withdraws from an international institution? We distinguish between negotiation approaches that vary in the degree to which they accommodate the withdrawing state's demands and argue that negotiation preferences are shaped by two issues. The first is voters’ exposure to the costs and benefits of accommodation. This exposure varies across issues, and we argue that citizens will generally prefer non-accommodation on zero-sum issues, but support more accommodation on cooperation issues, where non-accommodation puts existing cooperation gains at risk. Second, withdrawal negotiations create precedents, and citizens should therefore be less willing to accommodate the more they are concerned about the ripple effects of accommodation on the institution's stability. These concerns also confront citizens with two types of dilemmas depending on how favorably they view the institution themselves. To test our argument, we use survey evidence and a conjoint experiment conducted in Germany and Spain during the Brexit negotiations. We find that respondents overall are more willing to accommodate the UK on cooperation issues than on zero-sum issues, but also find evidence that Euroskeptics and Europhiles confront different issue-specific dilemmas. Our paper contributes to a better understanding of the dynamics surrounding the challenges to multilateralism that have proliferated in recent years.

Digitalisierung und Verkehrswende

On-Demand Ridesharing-Shuttles kombinieren individuelle Fahrten zu global optimierten Routen mit flexiblen Zu- und Ausstiegsorten. Sie könnten dazu beitragen, Verkehrsstaus und CO2-Emissionen zu reduzieren. Der Beitrag geht der Frage nach, wie ein Shuttlesystem und sein Umfeld gestaltet sein sollten, so dass Pendler ermutigt werden, Shuttles anstelle des eigenen Autos zu nutzen, ohne gleichzeitig die Abkehr von öffentlichen Verkehrsmitteln zu fördern. In einer Online-Befragung untersuchten wir die Determinanten der Verkehrsmittelwahl von Pendlern in der Region Stuttgart (n=1000). Im Rahmen der Befragung wurde ein Choice-Based Conjoint Experiment durchgeführt. Die Studienteilnehmer konnten zwischen der Nutzung des eigenen Autos, des öffentlichen Nahverkehrs und eines Shuttleservices auf Elektrobusbasis wählen. Als Prädiktoren der Wahl wurden die Attribute Reisekosten, Reisezeit, Fußweg, Auslastung der Shuttles und öffentlichen Verkehrsmittel, soziale Normen und Parkgebühren variiert. Diese Attribute hatten signifikante Auswirkungen auf die Wahl des Verkehrsmittels. Für Werte, die einer realistischen Ausgangssituation für ein Shuttlesystem entsprechen - höhere Kosten und längere Fußwege bei der Nutzung von Shuttles gegenüber dem eigenen Pkw, gleiche Reisezeit für alle Verkehrsmittel, Einführung von innerstädtischen Parkgebühren für Pkw - entschieden sich 11 % für den Shuttle. Bei optimierten Bedingungen scheint die Einführung von Shuttle-Diensten also ein gangbarer Weg zu einem nachhaltigeren Verkehrssystem zu sein.

Discrimination against mobile European Union citizens before and during the first COVID-19 lockdown: Evidence from a conjoint experiment in Germany

One of the greatest achievements of the EU is the freedom of movement between member states offering citizens equal rights in EU member states. EU enlargement and the COVID-19 pandemic allow for a critical test of whether EU citizens are indeed treated equally in practice. We test preferential treatment of EU citizens in two hypothetical choice experiments in Germany at two different time points: in the period before and during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. Theories of responses to threat suggest that the COVID-19 crisis should increase discrimination against mobile EU citizens. While our findings reveal sizeable discrimination based on nationality and language proficiency of mobile EU citizens, the findings also suggest that, contrary to expectations, discrimination did not increase in the initial COVID-19 crisis period.

Do voters want domestic politicians to scrutinize the European Union?

In light of important political events that go beyond the nation state (e.g., migration, climate change, and the coronavirus pandemic), domestic politicians are increasingly pressured to scrutinize and speak out on European policy-making. This creates a potential trade-off between allocating effort to domestic and supranational affairs, respectively. We examine how citizens perceive legislator involvement in European Union (EU) politics with a pre-registered conjoint experiment in Germany. Our results show that Members of Parliament (MPs) are not disadvantaged when allocating effort to European affairs as compared to local and national affairs. In addition, voters tend to prefer MPs who engage in EU policy reform over those who do not. As demand for legislator involvement in European politics is on the rise, we provide empirical evidence that MPs can fulfill this demand without being disadvantaged by the electorate.