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CORDIS - Forschungsergebnisse der EU
CORDIS

Residential mobility and the realignment of electoral politics in established democracies

Projektbeschreibung

Wechselnde Aufenthaltsorte in etablierten Demokratien

Die Polarisierung in kulturellen Fragen und der Aufstieg populistischer radikaler Rechter bedeuten eine Neuausrichtung der Wahlpolitik, gezeichnet durch eine Konfrontation zwischen engen und weltoffenen Werten. Im ERC-finanzierten Projekt RESPOL werden wechselnde Aufenthaltsorte als kritischer, aber wenig beachteter Faktor bei diesen Entwicklungen dargestellt. Das RESPOL-Team vertritt die Theorie, dass wechselnde Aufenthaltsorte sich auf politische Einstellungen und Wahlentscheidungen auswirken, und stützt sich dabei auf Erkenntnisse aus der Psychologie und der Theorie des Sozialkapitals. Wechselnde Aufenthaltsorte sind dreimal häufiger als internationale Migration und sollen den Individualismus und die Toleranz durch vielfältige Interaktionen fördern. Ein stabiler Aufenthaltsort hingegen stärkt vermutlich die Trennung in Eigen- und Fremdgruppen. Das Team testet diese Ideen systematisch anhand länderübergreifender und subnationaler Daten auf individueller und aggregierter Ebene, um neue Erkenntnisse zur Dynamik des politischen Konflikts in etablierten Demokratien zu gewinnen.

Ziel

Polarization over cultural issues and the rise of the populist radical right indicate a fundamental realignment of electoral politics in established democracies around a new political cleavage characterized by an antagonism between parochial and cosmopolitan values. RESPOL introduces residential mobility as a fundamental determinant of these developments. In advancing a novel research agenda on residential mobility, the project also integrates and provides new perspectives on existing research.

Residential mobility exceeds the volume of international migration, on which much research on the rise of the radical right focuses, by a factor of three. Although its significance is recognized in demography and psychology, residential mobility has yet to be widely recognized in political science. Psychological research considers residential mobility an essential driver of cultural change and has shown how mobile communities foster individualism and tolerance through frequent interactions with strangers. In contrast, immobile communities promote stability and stronger social ties but intensify perceptions of in-group and out-group differences. The relevance of these observations has been highlighted in the wake of `Brexit,' framed by some as a confrontation between rooted `somewheres' and mobile `anywheres,' but the political impact of residential mobility lacks systematic study.

Drawing on research in psychology and social capital theory, the project will develop a comprehensive theoretical account of how residential mobility affects political attitudes and behavior to explain electoral realignment in established democracies. The project will use innovative combinations of cross- and sub-national data on residential mobility and political outcomes to systematically test its theoretical propositions at the individual and aggregate levels. In doing so, RESPOL promises to significantly advance our understanding of the evolution of political conflict in electoral democracies.

We postpone the start of the project until after 30 September 2025. In this case there would be no ambiguity about my engagement by Chemnitz University of Technology. Regarding the groundbreaking nature of the project: As outlined in my proposal, to date there are only three journal publications in demography/geography and one journalistic book on the potential influence of residential mobility on political opinions or voting choices, none of which are able to provide the causal evidence that my project aims to provide. I am not aware of any new publications that have come out since I submitted my proposal. As outlined in my proposal, I am only aware of two unpublished working papers on the political effects of residential mobility, one of which I co-authored. The author of the other working paper seems to be more interested in the effects of residential mobility on civic and political engagement than on political attitudes and voting or electoral realignment more broadly. As for the specifics of my research proposal, nothing in the research design requires that the project begin at any particular point in time. The proposal calls for unique survey work to be conducted in Germany, Sweden, and the United States. Given the 5-year duration of the project and the maximum 4-year term lengths for national legislatures and/or executive branches in Germany, Sweden, and the U.S. I am guaranteed to be able to cover at least one national election per country case study with a unique survey, regardless of the start date of the project. In summary, I am optimistic that a later start date would not negatively impact the groundbreaking nature of the project.

Wissenschaftliches Gebiet (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS klassifiziert Projekte mit EuroSciVoc, einer mehrsprachigen Taxonomie der Wissenschaftsbereiche, durch einen halbautomatischen Prozess, der auf Verfahren der Verarbeitung natürlicher Sprache beruht. Siehe: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.

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Programm/Programme

Finanzierungsplan

HORIZON-ERC -

Gastgebende Einrichtung

TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET CHEMNITZ
Netto-EU-Beitrag
€ 1 442 383,75
Adresse
STRASSE DER NATIONEN 62
09111 Chemnitz
Deutschland

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Sachsen Chemnitz Chemnitz
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€ 1 442 383,75

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