HPS³ - Robert A. Huber - Government Participation and Voters' Attitudes Towards Democratic RepresentationWe welcome Robert A. Huber on Thursday, 11 July 2024 to the HPS Seminar Series

11 July 2024, 5:15 pm

The Hamburg Political Science Seminar Series (HPS³) features international speakers presenting cutting-edge research in empirical political science and political economy.

We welcome on 

11 July,  17:15-18:45 CET in VMP9 B130

Robert A. Huber (Paris Lodron Universität Salzburg)

Title: Government Participation and Voters' Attitudes Towards Democratic Representation

Abstract:​
Through free and fair elections, democracies enable citizens to decide who represents their interests in parliament. However, the outcome of an election creates `winners' and `losers' depending on which parties become part of the government. As a large corpus of literature demonstrates, belonging to the winners or losers of an election affects citizens' satisfaction with democracy. This gap in satisfaction levels can have important implications for the stability and legitimacy of democratic systems, as individuals who feel that they are not benefiting from democracy may be more likely to disengage from political participation or even support nondemocratic alternatives. Despite these concerns, we know very little about the question of how winning or losing an election affects voters' preferences for more specific forms of democratic representation. We address this research gap and analyze how the winner-loser status affects citizens' levels of populist attitudes and their sub-dimensions, i.e., anti-elitism and people-centrism. Based on a causal identification strategy using high-quality panel data from Germany and Austria, we provide clear evidence for a winner-loser gap in populist attitudes. More specifically, we demonstrate that voters' populist attitudes strongly decrease when their party is in government. Moreover, the effect appears to be long-lasting as populist attitudes do not completely rebound to pre-government participation levels when a party goes back into opposition. Overall, our study is an important contribution to understanding both the winner-loser gap in satisfaction with democracy as well as research on the causes of populist attitudes.

The HPS³ seminars take place  in person at the UHH. Please find the seminar program on the HPS³ Website.

We invite everyone interested to attend the HPS Seminar Series and are looking forward to seeing you.