Research

Journal Articles

2024

1. War and Nationalism: How WW1 Battle Deaths Fueled Civilians’ Support for the Nazi Party

   Alexander De Juan, Felix Haass, Carlo Koos, Sascha Riaz, and Thomas Tichelbaecker

   American Political Science Review, 2024

   Abstract Link Media Replication files

   TAZ. “Je mehr Kriegstote, desto mehr NSDAP-WählerInnen”.
   KATAPULT Ausgabe 34 / 2024, p. 68. “Kriege stärken rechtsnationale Parteien”.

   Can wars breed nationalism? We argue that civilians’ indirect exposure to war fatalities can trigger psychological processes that increase identification with their nation and ultimately strengthen support for nationalist parties. We test this argument in the context of the rise of the Nazi Party after World War 1 (WW1). To measure localized war exposure, we machine-coded information on 7.5 million German soldiers who were wounded or died in WW1. Our empirical strategy leverages battlefield dynamics that cause plausibly exogenous variation in the county-level casualty fatality rate—the share of dead soldiers among all casualties. We find that throughout the interwar period, electoral support for right-wing nationalist parties, including the Nazi Party, was 2.6 percentage points higher in counties with above-median casualty fatality rates. Consistent with our proposed mechanism, we find that this effect was driven by civilians rather than veterans and areas with a preexisting tradition of collective war commemoration.

2023

1. Electoral Discrimination, Party Rationale, and the Underrepresentation of Immigrant‐Origin Politicians

   Daniel Auer, Lea Portmann, and Thomas Tichelbaecker

   American Journal of Political Science, 2023

   Abstract Link Media Replication files

   Tagesanzeiger. “Wähler und Parteien diskriminieren Kandidaten mit ausländischen Namen”.

   Abstract Immigrants and other minorities are underrepresented in politics in most Western democracies. We argue that strategically acting party gatekeepers who update their nomination strategies based on voter behavior contribute to this representation gap. Drawing on unique panel data from Swiss local elections, we find that candidates with a “foreign‐sounding” name systematically receive not only fewer votes but are also fielded on less promising list positions compared to native candidates. We track candidates across elections and show that this inequality is driven by voter discrimination in previous elections. Our study carries relevance for research on minority candidates by linking different stages in the electoral process and showing how parties indirectly discriminate due to their use of candidate‐performance information. It also bears practical implications, pointing to avenues how parties can break the cycle of discrimination in the electoral process.

2. What Do We Measure When We Measure Affective Polarization across Countries?

   Thomas Tichelbaecker, Noam Gidron, Will Horne, and James Adams

   Public Opinion Quarterly, 2023

   Abstract Link Replication files

   Abstract Measures of affective polarization—that is, dislike and hostility across party lines—have been developed and validated in the context of America’s two-party system. Yet increasingly, affective polarization is examined comparatively. We address this issue by introducing a novel dataset that measures aspects of partisan affect in 10 countries with diverse party systems. We detect associations between partisan affect toward out-parties versus affect toward out-parties’ supporters, but their strength varies across countries. We discuss measurement reasons for this variation and consider the implications of our findings for the emerging comparative affective polarization literature.

Books

Forthcoming

1. The European Ideological Space in Voters’ Own Words

   Noam Gidron, and Thomas Tichelbaecker

   Cambridge University Press, Forthcoming

   Abstract Link

   There is a broad consensus among scholars that the ideological space of Western democracies consists of two distinct dimensions: one economic and the other cultural. In this Element, we explore how ordinary citizens make sense of these two dimensions. Analyzing novel survey data collected across 10 Western democracies, we employ text analysis techniques to investigate responses to open-ended questions. We examine variations in how people interpret these two ideological dimensions along three levels of analyses: across countries, based on demographic features, and along the left-right divide. Our results suggest that there are multiple two-dimensional spaces: that is, different groups ascribe different meanings to what the economic and cultural political divides stand for. We also find that the two dimensions are closely intertwined in people’s minds. Our findings make theoretical contributions to the study of electoral politics and political ideology.

Working Papers

2024

1. Exposure to Political Violence Does Not Reduce Political Involvement Among Women.

   Jey Alizade, Fabio Ellger, Marius Grünewald , and Thomas Tichelbaecker

   2024

   Abstract

   Do attacks against politicians affect the descriptive representation of women? Studies suggest that female candidates are more likely to become targets of political crime, but little is known about the consequences for descriptive representation. To study this question, we combine analyses of observational data measuring crimes against politicians with evidence from a survey experiment. Examining German local elections, we demonstrate that attacks against politicians are not associated with fewer female candidates on party lists. In addition, our survey experiment, using a sample of likely candidates, shows that exposure to political crime does not reduce willingness to run for office or engage in politics among female respondents. If anything, our findings suggest that political violence might reduce the gender gap in local politics. Our results highlight resilience among female candidates in face of increasing political violence.