Explaining Politicians' and Voters' Behavior

Informazioni relative al progetto

POLITICALMIND

ID dell’accordo di sovvenzione: 648833

DOI

10.3030/648833

Progetto concluso il 22 Marzo 2018

Data della firma CE 17 Settembre 2015

Data di avvio 1 Ottobre 2015

Data di completamento 31 Luglio 2021

Finanziato da

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Costo totale

€ 1 375 869,00

Contributo UE

€ 1 375 869,00

Coordinato da

UNIVERSITA COMMERCIALE LUIGI BOCCONI
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - POLITICALMIND (Explaining Politicians' and Voters' Behavior)

Periodo di rendicontazione: 2018-02-01 al 2019-07-31

Sintesi del contesto e degli obiettivi generali del progetto

The project has focused on two main research questions. First, the role of political parties as organizational structures that shape political careers (i.e. who gets on top in democracies). Second, the impact of both campaign information disseminated by politicians and traumatic events (e.g. civil war or financial crises) on voters’ behavior.
Both research questions have been tackled empirically, combining the collection of original datasets (referred to Italy) with the implementation of state-of-the-art econometric strategies, namely, randomized controlled trials in the field, laboratory experiments, and regression discontinuity designs. In particular, the causal effects of campaign messages on voters’ beliefs and behaviors have been estimated by convincing real-world politicians to randomize a part of their campaign in Italian local elections.

Lavoro eseguito dall’inizio del progetto fino alla fine del periodo coperto dalla relazione e principali risultati finora ottenuti

In a set of studies on political party networks, we show the importance of internal networks and factions in shaping the careers of individual politicians within party organizations.
In a set of studies on the impact of traumatic event on voters’ behavior, we estimate the long-lasting effect of political violence on electoral outcomes. In particular, we exploit a geographic discontinuity in the intensity and duration of the Nazi occupation of Italy and civil war in 1943-45. We find that the Communist party gained votes in the postwar elections where the Nazi occupation and the civil war lasted longer. This effect persists until the early 1990s. The empirical evidence also suggests that this is due to an effect on political attitudes rather than party organizations. Thus, the foreign occupation and the civil war left a lasting legacy on the newborn Italian democracy.
In a set of studies on the impact of campaign messages by politicians, we document three original results thanks to both randomized political campaigns in the field and online survey experiments. First, there are stark gender differences in the response to negative campaigning, which appears to be effective with male voters but to be counterproductive with females. Second, there is causal evidence of cognitive dissonance in voting behavior. Third, negative campaigning produces spillover effects in multi-candidate environments, as both the receiver and the sender of the campaign attack lose votes in favor of third-party candidates.

Progressi oltre lo stato dell’arte e potenziale impatto previsto (incluso l’impatto socioeconomico e le implicazioni sociali più ampie del progetto fino ad ora)

The aforementioned studies shed light on the importance of party structures and internal networks on political selection (a topic that was under-studied in the political economics literature). They provide new evidence on the long-lasting effects of traumatic events on political systems. And, finally, they produce causal estimates on the short-run effects of campaign information on voters’ behavior.