Unveiling the Real Madrid effect: the impact of football-related acrimony on elections

IF 2.8 4区经济学 Q1 ECONOMICS

Economia Politica Pub Date : 2023-10-10 DOI:10.1007/s40888-023-00317-8

Vincenzo Alfano, Salvatore Ercolano

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Abstract

Abstract Contributing to the literature on so-called irrelevant events, this article aims to investigate the existence of a relation between football results and voters’ behaviour. There are indeed reasons to believe that football-related acrimony could influence electoral behaviour. More precisely, does the rank of a rival team and the distance between it and local teams influence the behaviour of the electorate? Spain seems to be the perfect case for study of this relationship, since the presence of football teams representing both local ( comunidad ) and central authorities (the Spanish Crown) allows us to study the effect of an important cleavage: the centre-periphery. This means that sport disputes may be reflected in voting preferences for ethno-regionalist parties. Following this reasoning, the better Real Madrid (the team representing the Crown) performs, and the closer the local team is to it (and thus actually competing), the stronger local supporters’ sense of acrimony and desire for payback will be. By means of a quantitative approach, using data on election results and Spanish Liga rankings, our analysis confirms the existence of a negative correlation between Real Madrid’s ranking and distance from local teams, and the share of votes in ethno-regionalist parties.

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揭秘皇马效应:与足球相关的尖刻言辞对选举的影响

对所谓无关事件的文献做出贡献，本文旨在调查足球结果与选民行为之间存在的关系。确实有理由相信，与足球有关的尖刻言辞会影响选举行为。更准确地说，竞争对手球队的排名及其与当地球队之间的距离是否会影响选民的行为?西班牙似乎是研究这种关系的完美案例，因为代表地方(社区)和中央当局(西班牙王室)的足球队的存在使我们能够研究一个重要分裂的影响:中心边缘。这意味着体育争端可能会反映在对民族地区主义政党的投票偏好上。按照这个推理，皇家马德里(代表王室的球队)表现越好，当地球队越接近它(因此实际上是竞争对手)，当地支持者的敌意和报复欲望就会越强烈。通过定量方法，使用选举结果和西甲排名的数据，我们的分析证实了皇马的排名与与当地球队的距离以及民族地区主义政党的选票份额之间存在负相关关系。

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来源期刊

Economia Politica ECONOMICS-

CiteScore

3.90

自引率

5.60%

发文量

期刊介绍： This journal publishes peer-reviewed articles that link theory and analysis in political economy, promoting a deeper understanding of economic realities and more effective courses of policy action. Established in 1984, the journal has kept pace with the times in disseminating high-quality and influential research aimed at establishing fruitful links between theories, approaches and institutions. With this relaunch (which combines Springer’s worldwide scientific scope with the Italian cultural roots of il Mulino and Fondazione Edison, whose research has been published by the two mentioned publishers for many years), the journal further reinforces its position in the European and international economic debate and scientific community. Furthermore, this move increases its pluralistic attention to the role that – at the micro, sectoral, and macro level – institutions and innovation play in the unfolding of economic change at different stages of development.