What Does Suburbia Vote for?

Ströbele, Maarit Felicitas

doi:10.5771/9783845279602

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The salience of the rural–urban divide in Switzerland is also reflected in a recent report that surveys feelings of resentment and finds that rural residents hold higher levels of resentment about their political, economic and societal position than their urban counterparts (Hermann et al., 2023). Despite this salience of the Swiss rural–urban divide, most studies to date focus either on direct democratic votes or elections (Kübler et al., 2013; Ladner, 2004; Linder, 2015; Linder et al., 2008; Mantegazzi, 2021), or the role of the suburbs as a third category (Kübler, 2022; Kübler & Bijl‐Schwab, 2014; Longchamp, 2015; Scheuss, 2013; Ströbele, 2012, 2017). However, no research known to me looks into other aspects of the Swiss rural–urban divide, such as political trust.…”

Section: Theoretical Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Confidence Across Cleavage: The Swiss Rural–Urban Divide, Place‐Based Identity and Political Trust

Zumbrunn

2024

Swiss Political Sci Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Since political trust is crucial to the survival of political systems, securing its high levels is essential. While Switzerland exhibits a large rural–urban divide in direct democratic votes, it has not yet been researched whether such a divide also exists with regard to political trust. In my investigation of the Swiss rural–urban divide in political trust, I bring in place as a social identity and evaluate whether the rural–urban divide is contingent upon place‐based identity. I employ OLS regression models using original survey data from 2022 with about 4,000 respondents. Results reveal a significant but irrelevantly small rural–urban difference in political trust. However, when interacting place‐based identity with place of living, I find that identity inverts the rural–urban divide. When place‐based identity is low, rural residents exhibit higher levels of political trust than urban residents, but when place‐based identity is high, trust is higher in urban than in rural places.

show abstract

Section: Theoretical Considerationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Confidence Across Cleavage: The Swiss Rural–Urban Divide, Place‐Based Identity and Political Trust

Zumbrunn

2024

Swiss Political Sci Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Third, the ruralurban divide is not only a dichotomy, but a continuum between rural and urban places and it is important to also investigate the role of the places in between the two poles. While more and more people live in suburban areas, they are a largely understudies place of living (Brookes and Cappellina 2023;Scala and Johnson 2017;Ströbele 2017). In Switzerland, about half of the population lives in suburban areas that classify neither as completely urban nor as entirely rural (Hermann, Bühler, and Wenger 2021) and these suburbs form a relevant group for placebased identities, as they serve as a reference for people living there (Scheuss 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Country Bumpkin or City Slicker? The Role of Place of Living and Place-Based Identity in Explaining Place-Based Resentment

Zumbrunn

2024

Political Research Quarterly

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In recent years, the rural-urban divide has not only made its way back into political science, but has also been given an entirely new angle by investigating place of living as its own social identity. However, research is still in its early stages and studies so far focus on linear explanations of place-based resentment. This paper studies place in the light of social identity theory and investigates how place of living and place-based identity interact in shaping place-based resentment. Original survey data on around 4000 respondents from Switzerland from 2022 with a novel measure of place-based identity and resentment is used. A distinction is made not only between rural and urban residents, but also between the suburbanites. Results show that rural residents hold the highest levels of identity and resentment, while suburban residents hold higher levels of resentment than urban ones do. Findings show that there is a moderating effect, whereby the rural-urban divide in resentment increases with place-based identity, while the suburban-urban gap diminishes with increasing place-based identity. These differences in place-based identity and resentment could explain the rural-urban divide in political attitudes and behavior.

show abstract

Thin or thick? Populist and radical right politics across European cities, suburbs, and countryside

Crulli

2024

Comp Eur Polit

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The surge of populist and radical right phenomena reshaped European political geography. Yet the connections between places of residence and populist or radical right politics tended to be neglected until recently. This paper addresses the gap by exploring how residency relates to support for populism and the radical right in contemporary Europe. Focusing on the distinction between ‘cities’, ‘towns–suburbs’, and ‘countryside’, I conduct an individual-level investigation of populist and radical right votes and attitudes across different residential contexts. The analysis is based on European Social Survey data (2020–22) from 23 countries, in both Western (WE) and Central–Eastern (CEE) Europe. The key finding is that the cleavage between cities and suburban–rural areas is much more related to the thick ideological underpinnings of the radical right—authoritarianism and nativism—than the thin, purely populist, dimension. Nativism particularly is stronger the more rural the place of residence, irrespective of the individual’s socio-economic profile, political orientations, the extent to which their region is left-behind, and whether they live in WE or CEE. Hence, future research on the geographical polarization of politics may turn its attention to the radical right, more than to populism per se.

show abstract

What Does Suburbia Vote for?

Cited by 3 publications

References 0 publications

Confidence Across Cleavage: The Swiss Rural–Urban Divide, Place‐Based Identity and Political Trust

Confidence Across Cleavage: The Swiss Rural–Urban Divide, Place‐Based Identity and Political Trust

Country Bumpkin or City Slicker? The Role of Place of Living and Place-Based Identity in Explaining Place-Based Resentment

Thin or thick? Populist and radical right politics across European cities, suburbs, and countryside

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About