Are Immigrants Scapegoats? The Reciprocal Relationships Between Subjective Well-Being, Political Distrust, and Anti-immigrant Attitudes in Young Adulthood

This study examined the impact of native youth’s subjective well-being on exclusionary attitudes toward immigrants, seeking to understand the relationship between subjective well-being, political distrust, and anti-immigrant attitudes over time. Using longitudinal data, we followed three cohorts of native young adults ( N = 1352; Mage = 22.72, SD = 3.1) in Sweden over a period of 2 years. The results showed that subjective well-being did not predict an increase in anti-immigrant attitudes among native youth, but anti-immigrant attitudes had a significant impact on subjective well-being. The data also found bidirectional and mutually reinforcing relationships between subjective well-being and political distrust, and between political distrust and anti-immigrant attitudes. These results highlight that improving young adults’ subjective well-being represents an important basis for preventing the development of political distrust, which in turn could reduce native youth’s susceptibility to adopt hostile attitudes toward immigrants.

Modeling corruption perception effects on non-electoral participation in Morocco (2018-2019)

Theoretical literature has two competing theories about the effects of corruption on society: the first group sees corruption as something that "Greases the Wheels of" the administrative and economic systems of countries and the second group calls it something that "Sands the Wheels" of those systems. This study examines the direct and indirect effects of corruption perceptions among Moroccan citizens on the non-electoral participation using the fifth wave data of the Arab barometer, assuming the first group's ideas. The fifth wave of this data was obtained in 2019-2018 and surveyed 2400 Moroccan citizens. Testing the hypothesis through the SEM indicate that, first, corruption perception has a direct positive and significant effect on the citizens' negative evaluation of the government performance and it increases the political distrust among citizens indirectly and significantly. Secondly, the results indicate that although perceptions of corruption by citizens do not directly have a significant effect on non-electoral participation, because all the mediating variables are significant, it can be argued that perceptions of corruption can have a positive impact on the expansion of non-electoral participation among citizens indirectly and it can happen through the variables of poor government performance and political distrust.

Political mobilization and its impact on voter turnout: A survey experiment in Iraq

This article clarifies how political mobilization affects voter turnout in a post-conflict society by analyzing the Iraqi case using survey data. Voter turnout was high in post-war Iraq. However, the voter turnout in the fourth election, held in May 2018, declined by 20 percentage points from the previous one in 2014, mainly because of widespread political distrust due to corruption among political elites and their embezzlement of public funds, neglect of the people, and the breakdown of social services after the intensive operation against the so-called Islamic State (IS). Political mobilization during electoral campaigns usually encourages voters to go to polling stations. Notwithstanding, amid widespread political distrust in a post-conflict society, how does political mobilization affect voters’ behavior in elections? To answer this research question, we conducted a survey experiment during the 2018 electoral campaign to scrutinize the effects of political mobilization on voters in Iraq. Through quantitative analysis of the survey data, we demonstrated that voters are more likely to refrain from visiting polling stations if they are mobilized by political parties during a campaign. Thus, political mobilization discourages voters from participating in elections when there is extensive political distrust.