Alexandra Jabbour | publications

Party Politics

Party Responsiveness Over Time: From Left-Right to Issue-Specific Dimensions

Ruth Dassonneville, Nadjim Frechet, Alexandra Jabbour, Benjamin Ferland, and Jonathan Homola

Accepted at Party Politics, 2024

Abstract

Parties' ideological responsiveness to public opinion is a key finding in the party politics literature. Leveraging the longitudinal coverage of public opinion and party position data, this research note shows that findings of left-right ideological responsiveness are limited to a specific time period. We find that since the mid-1990s, left-right shifts in public opinion are no longer significantly associated with party position changes on the same dimension. By examining over-time changes in responsiveness on more specific issue dimensions, we also uncover that at about the same time, a pattern of responsiveness on issues related to nationalism/immigration has emerged. These findings highlight the need to move beyond a focus on a single left-right dimension for studying public opinion and party behavior.
1. EJPR
  
  The Implications of Cohabitation Between Working Age Children and Parents for Political Opinions
  
  Alexandra Jabbour
  
  European Journal of Political Research, 2024
  
  Abstract Bibtex Article Code
  
  A large number of young adults still live with their parents because they have difficulties entering the job market, because of low wages, or the cost of housing. Despite much research in social science on the consequences of this salient social trend, we lack an understanding of its implications for public opinion. This research note fills this gap by investigating whether such living arrangement between working age children and their parents is correlated with household members' political stances. Specifically, I expect that the anxiety induced by seeing their children having difficulties to become independent will lead parents to hold more negatives political stances, while the same outcome is expected from working age children who failed to fly the nest compared to their independent peers. Using data from the European Social Survey in 32 countries covering the period between 2002 and 2016, I show that, for both parents and young adults, cohabitation is associated with negative evaluations of the national economy and of the government's performance. Studies that do not take into account the situation of other household members might miss an important part of the opinion formation puzzle.
  
  @article{jabbour2024implications, title={The implications of cohabitation between working age children and parents for political opinions}, author={Jabbour, Alexandra}, journal={European Journal of Political Research}, volume={63}, number={1}, pages={395--406}, year={2024}, publisher={Wiley Online Library} }