Outcome Isn’t Everything: Electoral Consequences of Implementing or Withdrawing Unpopular Policies
Published in Political Behavior, 2024
With: Elena Leuschner
Incumbents often make unpopular policy decisions. But can they remedy their negative electoral consequences? We extend the wide literature concerning retrospective voting to the case of unpopular policies and examine whether voters reward a responsive withdrawal of an unpopular policy proposal or punish the disclosed policy intention despite the withdrawal. To test this, we use granular data on Swedish local election results from 2002 to 2018 and the case of widely unpopular school closure proposals, some of which were implemented and others not. We exploit within municipality variation in voting over time to causally estimate the consequences for incumbents in the neighborhood surrounding the schools. Our results confirm that even if a school remains open, voters punish the incumbent and consider the initial proposal as informative for their vote. Our findings have implications for the understanding of democratic accountability and which information voters take into account when casting their vote.
Political Expectations and Electoral Responses to Wind Farm Development in Sweden
Published in Energy Policy, 2024
With: Zeth Isaksson
Wind energy expansion has influenced electoral behavior by decreasing support for incumbents, primarily explained by not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) arguments. However, how does the establishment of wind farms shape electoral behavior when municipal politicians can veto such establishments? Analyzing Sweden, this study shows that voters respond not only by retrospectively evaluating past constructions but also by evaluating parties differently based on their expectations. Our results indicate that parties more likely to approve turbine constructions are punished more than those less expected to do so. Additionally, we find no evidence that the construction of wind turbines influences support for either Green or radical right-wing parties. In conclusion, this study show that the political repercussions of wind farm expansion are multifaceted, influenced by a combination of past actions, future expectations, and the ideological stances of political parties.
Does Deliberative Education Increase Civic Competence? Results from a Field Experiment
Published in Journal of Experimental Political Science, 2020
With: Mikael Persson, Klas Andersson, Pär Zetterberg & Pär Ekman
How should education be structured to most effectively increase civic outcomes such as political knowledge and democratic values? We present results from a field experiment in which we compare the effects of deliberative education and traditional teacher-centered education. The study is the largest field experiment on deliberative education to date and involved more than 1,200 students in 59 classrooms. We test the effects on four forms of civic competence: political knowledge, political interest, democratic values, and political discussion. In contrast to previous research, we find little evidence that deliberative education significantly increases civic competence.