Rural decline and satisfaction with democracy

Lago, Ignacio

doi:10.1057/s41269-021-00221-8

Cited by 20 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 27 publications

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“…We know several things about how rurality is associated with political attitudes. Across Europe, people in rural areas display lower levels of trust in political institutions or satisfaction with democracy (Kenny & Luca, 2021;Mitsch et al, 2021;Lago, 2022). To some extent, these urban-rural gaps can also result from lagging economic vitality and how it is felt and perceived or from a dealignment with increasingly dominant sets of values in urban centers.…”

Section: The Political Argumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Political Neglect and Support for the Radical Right: The Case of Rural Portugal

Magalhães,

Cancela

2024

Preprint

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Why are rural voters more likely to support radical right parties? This paper examines the relationship between living in a rural area and supporting the Portuguese radical-right party Chega. Portugal’s radical right is an interesting case study, not only because of its belated but very fast electoral growth but also because Portugal represents an unusual case of economic convergence between urban and rural areas in the last decade, challenging the traditional explanation for rural populism — economic grievances. Using data from an exit poll from the 2022 elections, we start by showing that living in a rural area in Portugal increases the likelihood of voting for Chega. Then, using a 2023 face-to-face national survey, we use parallel mediation models to test different mechanisms that relate rurality with the vote for the radical right. We find no evidence that cultural and economic mechanisms play a relevant role in the relationship between rurality and the radical right vote in Portugal. Instead, rural residents are more likely to perceive the areas where they live as politically neglected, and it is this perception that feeds into the radical right vote. Political neglect and marginality emerge as the key mediating factor, shedding light on the dynamics of radical right-wing populism in rural regions.

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Section: The Political Argumentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Political Neglect and Support for the Radical Right: The Case of Rural Portugal

Magalhães,

Cancela

2024

Preprint

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“…media, parties may now consider it unnecessarily complex and costly to invest in grassroots structures in remote areas. For their part, citizens in those areas may be less inclined to engage anyway, given their higher levels of apathy and distrust towards parties (Lago, 2021;Mitsch et al, 2021). Certainly, the few relevant international studies point to difficulties in maintaining the party on the ground in more sparsely populated areas.…”

Section: The Party On the Groundmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is made more plausible by the fact that discontent and apathy towards politics are higher in peripheral areas, where citizens are more likely to consider themselves 'left behind' by distant metropolitan elites (Jennings et al, 2021). Research in Europe has shown that people outside urban areas are less satisfied with democracy (Lago, 2021) and have lower levels of political trust (Mitsch et al, 2021). There are thus good reasons to believe that people will be even less inclined to participate as grassroots members of the major parties in remote areas than they are in urban ones.…”

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confidence: 99%

The Party on Remote Ground: Disengaging and Disappearing?

McDonnell

Stanford

2022

Parliamentary Affairs

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The party on the ground has traditionally enabled linkage with the party in office along with providing candidates, selectorates, and campaign volunteers. While this still occurs in cities, we do not know how party organisation changes have affected remote areas. To investigate, we examine two remote Australian electorates: the Barkly in the Northern Territory and the Kimberley in Western Australia. Based on interviews with grassroots members, representatives and officials, we conclude that, although parties still exert their traditional functions in some remote areas, in others they have disengaged, rendering membership less meaningful and weakening the chain of democratic legitimacy.

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“…A study of 27 European countries found that people living in declining rural regions were less satisfied with democracy than those who lived in urban areas. 14 In the U.S. Health and Retirement Study, living in depopulating counties was associated with faster cognitive decline. 15 We examined how the rate of population change in Finnish municipalities was associated with the residents' psychological and social wellbeing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychological and social wellbeing associated with regional population change in Finland

Jokela,

Laakasuo,

Parikka

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Purpose: Regional depopulation is an increasingly common demographic issue in many countries, as population growth becomes concentrated in small number of urban centers. Depopulation has adverse effects on the region’s socioeconomic development, and often leads to worse living circumstances, such as poor availability of services. Population growth, by contrast, has many socioeconomic benefits but may also introduce unwanted consequences, such as urban alienation. However, the associations of regional population change with inhabitants’ psychological and social wellbeing have not been examined as extensively as the associations with socioeconomic outcomes. Methods: With a large survey dataset from Finland (n=99,034 participants from 299 municipalities), we examined whether regional, municipality-level population decline and growth over the preceding 10 years were associated with psychological and social wellbeing of the inhabitants of the municipalities. We were specifically interested in whether growth and decline were both related to these outcomes, or whether the associations were more pronounced for either decline or growth. Findings: The results showed that population decline was related to lower social wellbeing (e.g., lower social support) and that these associations tended to be more pronounced for population decline than growth (e.g., less frequent social contact and higher risk of loneliness). Population change was not associated with inhabitants’ depressive symptoms. Conclusions: These findings suggest that regional population decline can be particularly relevant for worsening social wellbeing of the inhabitants.

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Rural decline and satisfaction with democracy

Cited by 20 publications

References 27 publications

Political Neglect and Support for the Radical Right: The Case of Rural Portugal

Political Neglect and Support for the Radical Right: The Case of Rural Portugal

The Party on Remote Ground: Disengaging and Disappearing?

Psychological and social wellbeing associated with regional population change in Finland

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