Luciana Fiorini, Michael Jetter, Christopher F. Parmeter, Christopher Parsons
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引用次数: 0
Abstract
We examine whether electoral preferences depend on a community's population size by studying post-Second World War Baden-Württemberg in Southwest Germany. Our identification strategy exploits the fact that the French administration zone prohibited German expellees from entering, contrary to the contiguous American zone. Population size positively predicts voting for the Social Democrats (the party advocating substantial government involvement in practically all domains) and negatively for the Christian Democrats (the small-government party advocating free-market policies). Results are neither driven by pre-existing voting patterns, religious compositions, and location- and time-specific unobservables, nor other measurable cultural, demographic, economic, or political characteristics. Alternative explanations pertaining to expellee voting behaviour or a backlash of natives against expellees appear unlikely – population size prevails as a predominant voting predictor.
期刊介绍:
The British Journal of Political Science is a broadly based journal aiming to cover developments across a wide range of countries and specialisms. Contributions are drawn from all fields of political science (including political theory, political behaviour, public policy and international relations), and articles from scholars in related disciplines (sociology, social psychology, economics and philosophy) appear frequently. With a reputation established over nearly 40 years of publication, the British Journal of Political Science is widely recognised as one of the premier journals in its field.