CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2012
| Author | Artimof, Cosmin Andrei |
|---|---|
| Title | The influence of economic and social threat on voting behaviour after the economic crisis of 2008 |
| Summary | The scope of this thesis is to explore the influence economic and social threat have on the voting behaviour of citizens from seven Western and Central European countries, after the economic crisis of 2008. My analytical endeavour places this thesis in line with previous political psychology research on the influence of attitudes and beliefs on the electoral behaviour of individuals. Drawing on the works of Robert Altemeyer on right-wing authoritarianism, the two observational studies will argue that the resurgence of right-wing politics in contemporary Europe, in the context of the 2008 economic malaise, is a function of the subjective perceived economic threat mediated by individual authoritarian attitudes. By employing a cross-sectional analysis of the data available through the 2010 European Social Survey and building a novel index meant to assess individual levels of authoritarianism I proceed to explore to what extent economic factors played a role in the resurgence of right-wing populist parties. Findings show that economic threat did not have a cumulative effect on people’s authoritarian attitudes, though stronger authoritarian attitudes among European citizens were mainly caused by economic distress and were significant in predicting prejudice against immigrants but not the choice to vote for right-wing parties. |
| Supervisor | Littvay, Levente |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2012/artimof_cosmin.pdf |
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