Support For Right-wing Parties Research Articles

Social media, conspiracies, and political partisanship must be accounted for during the pandemic

Abstract Background The infodemic accompanying the COVID-19 pandemic made us aware that many factors not directly associated with the public health system can influence society's adherence to preventive measures. This study aimed to analyze the effects of social media use (SMU), generic conspiracist beliefs (GCB), and political sympathies (PS) on the compliance with general preventive measures (GPM) recommended during the pandemic and uptake of vaccination against COVID-19 (UC19V). Methods Data were obtained during an Internet-based survey performed 1.5 years from the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland in a representative sample. The effects of SMU, GCB, and PS on the GPM score (wearing the mask, washing hands, and keeping a distance) were analyzed with multivariable linear regression (MLiR) model. The role of these variables in the UC19V was assessed with the multivariable logistic regression (MLoR) model. For MLiR, B coefficients and 95% confidential intervals (95%CI) were reported, and for MLoR, odds ratio (OR) and 95%CI. Results Among 2189 respondents, those who accepted COVID-19 vaccination were 73.5%. Users of social media were 93.6%. All three independent variables were significantly associated with the GPM score and UC19V. GCB score was adversely associated with UC19V (OR, 95%CI: 0.42; 0.36-0.48) and with the GPM score (B; 95%CI: -0.15; -0.23 - - 0.76). The most intense SM users were less likely to adhere to GPM than non-users (B, 95%CI: -0.20; -0.37 -0.02). They were also 40% less likely to receive vaccination than non-users (OR, 95%CI: 0.59; 0.43-0.81). The extreme right-wing party supporters less frequently complied with GPM (B, 95%CI: -1.01; -1.28 -0.75) and were 50% less likely to get vaccinated than supporters of the ruling party (OR, 95%CI: 0.47; 0.31-0.70). Conclusions The SMU, GCB, and PS remain independent negative predictors of accepting COVID-19 vaccination and adherence to general preventive measures. Key messages • Effective implementation of preventive measures during the pandemic requires incorporating several circumstances outside health and public health systems. • Political sympathies, general conspiracist thinking, and immersion in social media independently decrease compliance with preventive measures and vaccination during epidemic threats.

FROM TRADITION TO INNOVATION: A STUDY OF RIGHT-WING CONSERVATIVE PARTIES IN CONTEMPORARY POLAND

The purpose of this article is to systematize and generalize information about the political right-conservative movement in modern Poland. In the course of the study, the potential for support for right-wing parties exists in every society. It can grow due to two groups of factors. The first concerns issues related to the difficult economic situation, the modernization of societies or cultural aspects, which are called demand-related in the literature. The second large group consists of supply factors: factors of possible political success (structure of political opportunities), electoral rules, inter-party competition, the role of the mass media, the structure of political divisions or the role of the winning ideology. Polish right-wing conservatism and nationalism is characterized, both in the past and in the present, by a powerful influence on the social and political life of the Republic of Poland, acting as a fundamental element of the unification of the Polish people. This movement retains its traditional features, which are reflected in the ideology of the Polish ruling party “Law and Justice”, which adheres to a national-conservative orientation with elements of clericalism, maintains close ties with the Catholic Church and organizations close to it. In the period after coming to power (2015), “PiS” slowly but steadily lost its Christian-democratic character and evolved into a conservative political force. This allowed “PiS” to win elections for a long time, and in 2023, it allows it to maintain leading positions in public opinion polls regarding support for political parties. In the field of international relations, supporters of “PiS” operated with judgments that expressed the ideas of nationalism, presenting the Poles as a strong nation that should occupy an important place among other countries. The process of creating right-wing conservative political parties and associations in Poland continues on an ongoing basis. The strengthening of nationalist movements in Poland takes place with the support of the state authorities of the Republic of Poland and is accompanied by a gradual shift of emphasis on controversial historical issues in the direction of nationalist ideology. Despite official Warsaw providing political support to Kyiv in the international arena in connection with the Russian military threat, the authorities of the Republic of Poland have no intention of blocking anti-Ukrainian activities carried out by Polish national-patriotic right-wing movements. This is due to the preparation of the ruling elite for the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the tragic events in Volyn in 2023, as well as the parliamentary election campaign. In the future, the activation of radical right-conservative formations on the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth may lead to protest actions in Poland, the purpose of which will be the dissemination of information unfavorable to our state in the Polish information space, which will have a negative impact on the formation of the foreign policy vector of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Ukrainian direction.

Patrimony at Risk: Market Uncertainty and Right-Wing Voting

The current literature suggests that financial assets push investors to vote for conservative parties given that right-wing policies are said to generate higher returns. Another popular argument is that wealth reduces demand for welfare spending given that private assets can be used as a substitute for social benefits. What I ask in this study is if asset owners always support right-wing parties and a trimmed welfare state. I argue that owners of financial assets become less tempted by free-market policy offerings when there is uncertainty in financial markets. The dot-com bubble, the financial crisis, and most recently the massive impact on financial markets of the coronavirus show that savings can evaporate in a matter of days. I show that the support for right-wing parties decreases in areas with much financial assets under such conditions.

Uncovering the Source of Patrimonial Voting: Evidence from Swedish Twin Pairs

The boom in wealth inequality seen in recent decades has generated a steep rise in scholarly interest in both the drivers and the consequences of the wealth gap. In political science, a pertinent question regards the political behavior across the wealth spectrum. A common argument is that the wealthy practice patrimonial voting, i.e. voting for right-wing parties to maximize returns on their assets. While this pattern is descriptively well documented, it is less certain to what extent this reflects an actual causal relationship between wealth and political preferences. In this study, we provide new evidence by exploiting wealth variation within identical twin pairs. Our findings suggest that while more wealth is descriptively connected to more support for right-wing parties, the causal impact of wealth on policy preferences is likely highly overstated. For several relevant policy areas these effects may not exist at all. Furthermore, the bias in naive observational estimates seems to be mainly driven by environmental familial confounders shared within twin pairs, rather than genetic confounding.

Setting the record straight: System justification and rigidity-of-the-right in contemporary Hungarian politics.

Despite international concern about the resurgence of right-wing authoritarianism and xenophobic prejudice throughout Central and Eastern Europe, researchers have argued recently that rightists may be less cognitively rigid and system-justifying than liberals and leftists in the context of Hungary (Kelemen, Szabó, Mészáros, László, & Forgas, 2014; Lönnqvist, Szabó, & Kelemen, 2019). We identify shortcomings of the research on which these claims are based and provide evidence that "rigidity-of-the-right" does indeed characterise contemporary Hungarian politics. Specifically, we hired professional survey firms to administer measures of personal needs for order and structure, system justification and political orientation to two large, nationally representative samples in Hungary. Results revealed that self-identified rightists scored higher than leftists on needs for order and structure and system justification (Study 1, N= 1005) and that supporters of right-wing parties (Fidesz and Jobbik) scored higher on both general and economic system justification than supporters of liberal and leftist parties (Study 2, N= 886). In exploratory analyses, we also observed that rightists expressed more intolerance than leftists toward groups that are commonly mistreated in Eastern Europe, including the Roma, religious minorities and sexual minorities.

Introduction

Introduction

Regional Political Climate and Individual Portfolios

In this paper I investigate the relationship between the local political climate and regional heterogeneity in the portfolio composition of individual investors. I find that right-wing supporters are more likely to participate in financial markets and hold a larger share of their wealth in securities portfolios. A move from moderate left to moderate right increases the probability to be invested in the market by 10%. Consistent with the theory of political conservatism, in regions with greater support for right-wing parties, individuals invest more in safe securities (by 3% in bonds and funds) and less in risky assets (by 8% in derivatives). Together with the measures of political surprise and uncertainty, political climate has significant impact on the home bias of individual investors. My results provide evidence that political values play an important role in shaping the financial decisions of households.

Negotiating National Identity: German Intellectuals Debate the 2015 Migrant Influx

From the summer of 2015 onwards the high influx of migrants and its effects have dominated the public debate in Europe. At first this influx posed mainly an administrative challenge in host countries such as Austria, Germany, and Sweden. Yet the seemingly incessant flow of migrants from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, seeking refuge from war or economic deprivation, soon sparked a heated controversy on the (im-)possibility of integrating people from very different cultural and religious backgrounds into European societies. Security concerns following the Paris attacks of November 2015 fuelled support for right-wing parties and extremist movements all over Europe. Meanwhile, one EU member state after another introduced restrictive policies contravening the open border policy introduced by the Schengen Agreement (1995) in their attempt to shift the administrative burden of handling the migrant crisis onto neighbouring states. The growing anxiety around questions of identity and security was compounded by growing concerns about the economy and welfare. In this essay I delineate the role played by public intellectuals in the debate about this crisis. Drawing on Richard Posner’s broad definition of a public intellectual as someone who writes knowledgeably about ideas for a popular audience on matters of public concern, I focus on how German public intellectuals debated the questions of national identity and the role of the nation-state in the EU migration crisis.

Ausnahmezustand? Weitermachen, wie bisher, geht nicht mehr

The comment takes a critical look at the article “Global Capitalism in a State of Emergency” written by the editorial board and published in PROKLA 185. It appreciates the analytical and political intensions of the article but questions the appropriateness of the term “state of emergency” to characterize global capitalism in its current conditions. It also deplores the lack of consequences of the analysis for the most pressing issue of the rise of right-wing groups and governments in Europe and the USA. In this respect, the comment suggests two topics which urgently deserve the attention of the Left. The first one concerns the reasons for the rise of the Right. The comment argues against the assumption of striking parallels to the rise of fascism in the 1920 and 1930s, proposes an alternative view (the undermining of institutionalized social reciprocity in decades of prevailing neoliberalism), and draws some conclusions. The second topic concerns the overrepresentation of workers among the supporters of right-wing parties. Here the comment calls upon the Left to embark on policies which aim at the regeneration of working-class consciousness and not to go for compromises with nationalism and xenophobia.

Welfare Chauvinismm vs. Race to the Bottomm: Immigration and Electoral Support for Populist Right in Industrial Democracies, 1990-2009

Some propose that the rise of right-wing populism in many industrial democracies is due to economic insecurities stemming from globalization — the so-called “race to the bottom” argument. They suggest that greater social protection can cushion society from communal disharmony. Others suggest that the anti-immigrant backlash is driven by “welfare chauvinism” where people already enjoying high levels of social welfare are likely to see immigrants as a threat to the system and that traditional xenophobia and racism are compounded by the view that immigrants are interlopers that free-ride on welfare. We test these competing propositions using panel data for 27 OECD countries between 1990 and 2009 (20 years). We find that the positive effect of immigration on support for right-wing populism is not direct but conditional upon higher degrees of social welfare, which supports propositions about “welfare chauvinism.” Support for right-wing parties increase when the degree of economic freedom is low and the degree of social protection is high. The results clearly fail to support propositions about the “race to the bottom” but support liberal arguments about the distorting effects of high welfare on communal harmony. Our results are robust to a host of alternative data, sample size and estimation techniques.

The Czech Pirate Party in the 2010 and 2013 Parliamentary Elections and the 2014 European Parliament Elections: Spatial Analysis of Voter Support

Abstract The paper presents a spatial analysis of the Czech Pirate Party (Pirates) voter support in the 2010 and 2013 parliamentary elections and the 2014 European Parliament elections. The main method applied for classifying electoral results was the spatial autocorrelation and spatial regression. The result of the analysis has shown that territorial support for the Pirates copies to a great extent the areas of high support for right-wing parties and simultaneously the areas exemplified by a high development potential. In the case of spatial characteristics, little support for the Pirates was shown in Moravia and higher in the Sudetenland in terms of determinants of support. Additionally to spatial regimes, inter-regional support for the Pirates was also influenced by other non-spatial characteristics, although the strength of their influence was relatively weak. The units which embodied a successful environment for voting for the Pirates were particularly characterized by greater urbanization and a greater number of entrepreneurs, while a lack of jobs and the older age structure, i.e. the signs that in the socio-economic, or socio-ecological sense define peripheral areas, negatively impacted the gains of the Pirates. Ambiguous influence was exercised by college-educated inhabitants, who in the parliamentary elections in 2010 and 2013 decreased the gains of the Pirates, however, in the elections to the European Parliament in 2014 a direction of relationship was modified and turned positive.

Tożsamość i postawy polityczne studentów wybranych kierunków Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego

Artykuł prezentuje wyniki badań przeprowadzonych w 2015 r. przed i po wyborach prezydenckich na grupie studentów wybranych kierunków Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego. Głównym celem badania była diagnoza postaw politycznych studentów. Uzyskane wyniki zostały następnie skonfrontowane z wynikami różnych badań ogólnopolskich, przeprowadzonych na reprezentatywnych próbach młodego pokolenia Polaków. Badanie potwierdziło tendencje z badań reprezentatywnych: z jednej strony ‒ o dokonującym się przesunięciu orientacji politycznych młodych ludzi w kierunku poglądów konserwatywnych, popierających partie prawicowe, z drugiej − znaczącą ich apolityczność.

E-voting: Lessons from Estonia

Estonia has used e-voting since 2005, and because e-voting is more accessible, more flexible and saves time, the result has been an increase in voter turnout. Compared with traditional voting in which a person must go to the polling station, a process that takes about 44 minutes, e-voting requires only 6 minutes. So far, supporters of right-wing parties and the Reform Party (Liberals) are more likely to use e-voting, with the result that Isamaa and ResPublica Liit (Conservatives) gained the majority of e-votes during the last parliamentary elections in 2011.

Two Peoples in One Land

Altemeyer's (1988) Right-Wing Authoritarianism Scale (RWA) was translated into Hebrew and Arabic and tested for reliability and validity. Seven hundred and eight Jewish undergraduate students, and 120 Moslem Palestinian students studying at a university in the occupied territories, completed the RWA and a demographic questionnaire. RWA scores of right-wing party supporters were significantly higher than those of left-wing party supporters, and scores of secular subjects in both societies were lowest. RWA scores of right-wing subjects remained significantly higher than those of left-wing subjects when religiosity was controlled. The results confirm the validity of the RWA, tested here in two languages in two societies that for years have been involved in bloody conflict. RWA scores and religiosity levels were lower in the Jewish Israeli society than in the Moslem-Palestinian one. The results are discussed within the sociopolitical context of the two societies.

Authoritarianism in Israeli Society

Abstract The Right-Wing Authoritarianism Scale (RWA; Altemeyer, 1988) was translated into Hebrew to test for cross-cultural validity in an Israeli context and to evaluate Ray's (1985) claim that the RWA measures only conservatism. Seven hundred eight Jewish Israeli undergraduate students (42.9% men and 57.1% women) whose mean age was 24 years, completed the RWA and a demographic questionnaire that included items on political affiliations and religiosity. The supporters of religious parties scored highest, followed by the supporters of right-wing parties, the Labour party, and the left-wing parties, with statistically significant differences between the four groups. The differences between the last three groups remained statistically significant when analysis was performed only on the secular subjects. The secular participants scored the lowest, followed by the traditional participants, and the orthodox participants. These findings confirmed the construct validity of the RWA with respect to Israeli culture.

Attitudes to the Army and Pro-Nuclear Activism in Three Student Groups

The study investigated the correlates of attitudes toward the army and pro-nuclear activism among students in Australia, N. Ireland and (white) South Africa. Results showed the South Africans to be most favorably disposed toward the army and also to be most favorably disposed toward the deployment of nuclear weapons. Across the three groups those with positive attitudes toward the army were authoritarian in their attitudes, had positive attitudes to those in positions of authority and voted for right-wing parties. In addition, N. Irish militarists were Protestant, had little personal experience of political violence, and were not anxious, while South African militarists were found to be con-formers. With regard to pro-nuclear activism, the cross-cultural correlates were authoritarianism, positive attitudes to those in authority and support of right-wing parties. Pro-nuclear activists in N. Ireland were older and had not experienced political violence, while South African activists were female.