Month: April 2024

With the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, European security has gained new levels of traction in some countries. Ending their historical position of non-alignment, Finland and Sweden have decided to become members of the NATO and Denmark has dismissed its 30-year opt-out from the Common Security and Defence Policy. At the same time, Norway has kept its stable position of non-alignment. In their recently published study, Marta Migliorati analyses these developments and proposes that crises can either amplify or reverse decoupling i.e., the disconnection between symbolic commitments to international institutions and the limited implementation of their policies. If crises intensify interdependence between states, preferences of elites and the public may shift towards deeper integration and thus windows of opportunities for policy change evolve. To test this theoretical framework, Marta Migliorati studies recent defense policy changes (or the lack thereof) in Nordic countries. The results of the analyses show that while in Sweden and Finland, citizens’ preferences for non-alignment had already started to slowly decrease, a drastic change of public sentiment to also end non-alignment symbolically only unfolded when the volatility of the international environment reached its peak with the Russian invasion in 2022. Similarly, although for Sweden a NATO membership is relatively costly due to investment in military capabilities, the Russian attack changed the originally strong preferences of citizens and political elites against a NATO membership. By contrast, in Norway, the crisis did not open a window of opportunity for change due to the historical de-politicization of EU matters by Norwegian elites and the rather Eurosceptic public. Overall, the study suggests that crises can indeed lead to stronger integration but only if they foster the respective preferences among elites and citizens alike.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are representatives responsive to citizens and interest groups? Anne Rasmussen and Simon Otjes argue in their innovative study that politicians have an incentive to respond to voters’ interests but not to policy preferences of all interest groups. Instead, politicians should prioritize interest groups that are ideologically close to them as a result of a higher sense of identification and agreement on specific policy issues. Additionally, politicians might attempt to enhance chances for re-election when reacting to information of ideologically close interest groups that probably represent – at least to some extent – the policy positions of the party’s constituents. Based on a comprehensive experimental design with around 2000 elected representatives at the local, regional and national level in Denmark and the Netherlands, they show that politicians indeed tend to be sensitive towards public opinion when stating their intended voting behavior but not necessarily to interest groups. In line with their expectations, interest groups can only influence politicians’ voting intention if they are ideologically close to them. While it is good news for democracy that public opinion is more important to politicians’ decision-making than interest groups, the study also demonstrates that interest groups have the potential to convince like-minded politicians to adopt policies that diverge from those of voters.

 

Industrial decarbonization is one option to limit climate change, but can come with costs in form of short-run unemployment. Thus, it might lead to political discontent due to feelings of economic and political unfairness among residents whose regions experience relatively more industrial decarbonization (i.e., brown sectors). In his convincing article, Zhen Jie Im tests these expectations in 60 West European countries based on fluctuations in employment rates and CO2 emissions as proxies for industrial decarbonisation and labor market trends. He combines this data with micro-level data from the European Social Survey to understand their effect on citizens’ feelings of unfairness and political discontent. Zhen Jie Im shows that if industrial decarbonization is accompanied by employment decline in brown sectors – presumably due to firms struggling with adjustment costs – perceptions of unfairness arise and political discontent increases. Yet, regions in which these sectors experience reduction in CO2 emissions but not employment rates exhibit lower levels of economic unfairness. Overall, this study implies that policy-makers can limit negative public opinion towards structural reforms limiting climate change by designing policies that avoid labor market disruptions.