Emigrants vs. rural politics: Cosmopolitan outlooks and electoral opposition to agrarian parties

Abstract

In many countries, agrarian political parties are important both to rural political representation and to government formation. Nevertheless, relatively little scholarly attention considers who votes for agrarian parties, or how institutional changes affect the relative electoral strength of such parties. This article postulates that cosmopolitan, globalized worldviews are particularly likely to lead voters to prefer alternatives to agrarian parties, and tests the argument with information about emigrant voters, a large bloc of identifiable voters tending to exemplify cosmopolitan perspectives. Analysis of elections across twenty-three European countries confirms that out-of-country voters are less likely to support agrarian parties than are their in-country counterparts, suggesting that forces leading to more cross-cultural, cosmopolitan identities may reduce the electoral weight of rural-focused parties. Evidence from Estonian elections shows that this reduced emigrant support for agrarian parties occurs whether migrants come from urban or from rural regions. • Agrarian political parties tend to reflect so-called ‘localist’ worldviews. • Localism may reduce agrarian parties’ appeal to more cosmopolitan voters. • Emigrants, archetypal cosmopolitans, vote against agrarian parties in Europe. • Estonian data shows even rural emigrants to be relatively agrarian-party averse.