Publications

Do Political Surveys Overestimate Affective Polarization?

Jabbour, A., Semih, Ç., Coulombe, M., Fréchet, N., Gareau Paquette, T., Leblanc, J., Liang, B., Pautonnier, V., Rafie, T., Taylor, M., Vandewalle, V., Bergeron, M., Kostelka, F., Dassonneville, R. (The Journal of Politics, in-principle acceptance of stage-1 registered report)

Mass Attitudes Towards Russia's Aggression Against Ukraine: Tentative Support for Top-Down Opinion Formation

Filip Kostelka, Martín Alberdi, Max Bradley, Toine Fiselier, Alexandra Jabbour, Nahla Mansour, Eleonora Minaeva, Silvia Porciuleanu, and Diana Rafailova, European Journal of Political Research
Abstract  Paper Code

This paper studies variation in mass attitudes towards the Russo-Ukrainian War. Although most Europeans express dismay at Russia's aggression against Ukraine, more ambivalent or even pro-Kremlin positions are not rare. Drawing on the literature on foreign policy and war, we hypothesise that support for the aggressor may stem from a quartet of factors: economic interests, ideological preferences, partisan alignment, and disinformation. We examine the role of these factors using two types of survey data. The first is an original survey conducted in five countries (Czechia, France, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia) and spanning over 12,000 respondents. The second is the Solidarity in Europe survey, with more than 24,000 respondents from seventeen countries. The results of three types of analyses reveal that neutral and pro-Kremlin attitudes, held by sizeable segments of European society, are most strongly linked to the positions of respondents' preferred political parties, followed by disinformation and ideology. Overall, top-down models of public opinion seem to better explain within-country variations in attitudes towards the conflict than bottom-up models. These findings, which should be interpreted with caution, carry important implications for containing Russia's influence on European public opinion and contribute to the literature on public preference formation in the field of foreign policy.

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

Ruth Dassonneville, Nadjim Fréchet, Alexandra Jabbour, Benjamin Ferland and Jonathan Homola, Party Politics
Abstract  Paper

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.

The Implications of Cohabitation Between Working Age Children and Parents on Political Opinions

Alexandra Jabbour, European Journal of Political Research
Abstract  Paper 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 arrangements 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.

More ‘Europe’, less Democracy? European integration does not erode satisfaction with democracy

Ruth Dassonneville, Alexandra Jabbour, and Michael S. Lewis-Beck, Electoral Studies
Abstract  Paper Code

The process of European integration, through institutions such as the European Union, the Eurozone, or Schengen, implies a shift in political decision-making away from the national governments and towards international institutions. This gradual shift in the balance of power, furthermore, is increasingly debated by citizens. As a result, European integration might lead to an erosion of satisfaction with democracy in European countries. By means of a longitudinal analysis of the determinants of satisfaction with democracy in European countries, we test this expectation. We find no indication that the shift in the balance of power, and the trend towards more European integration indeed have eroded satisfaction with the functioning of (national) democracy.

An extraordinary election? A longitudinal perspective of the Québec 2018 election

Jean-Francois Daoust and Alexandra Jabbour, French Politics
Abstract  Paper

From 1970 to 2018, either the Québec Liberal Party or the Parti Québécois won the elections in Québec. The Coalition Avenir Québec ended this long period of bipartisan alternation by winning a majority of seats in the 2018 election. Using datasets that cover five elections (2007, 2008, 2012, 2014, and 2018) over a period of 11 years, we provide a unique longitudinal perspective of citizens’ vote choice calculus. More specifically, we analyse long-term factors that are known to be crucial to make sense of electoral outcomes. Do factors such as generations, sex, attitudes towards Québec sovereignty and party identification have the same weight in voters’ calculus over time? Our results show a relative stability, but also several interesting variations, especially regarding the effect of support for Québec independence. This perspective deepens our understanding of recent political developments in Québec politics.