Ever since Korpi and Palme’s (1998) contribution on the re-distributive effects of targeted and universal policies, much work has re-examined their central thesis. While there is competing evidence on the redistributive impact of different policies, we know little about which of these policies are perceived as more redistributive by public opinion. This is surprising given the important role of perceptions in shaping preferences. This question is not only central to literature on preferences but also to contemporary debates on welfare state reform and universal basic income. We address this question through survey data and a conjoint experiment in comparative perspective, studying perceptions and preferences towards redistribution and welfare state support in Finland and Spain. Our results suggest that targeted policies are generally perceived as more re-distributive than universal ones, albeit with important variation within and across contexts. We find that no observable characteristics can explain these perceptions, although these do have an important impact on preferences towards welfare state reform. We hypothesised that individuals should support welfare designs that maximise their preferences, by supporting strategies that do so in line with their perceptions. We find supportive evidence for this in Finland, but findings in Spain indicate that we should reject this hypothesis. Interestingly however, we find that cleavages in preferences emerge in other policy dimensions too, like benefit generosity or funding mechanisms. In essence, our results suggest that perceptions about which policy designs are more re-distributive have an important role in shaping preferences towards welfare state reform.

Most studies on the formation of political coalitions focus on parties’ office-seeking and policy-seeking motivations, as well as on the institutions that favour alliance-building. Thus far, politicians’ personal characteristics have been ignored as potential drivers of coalition formation. This paper asks whether and how individual characteristics have a causal effect on decision-making on coalition government formation processes. To test this idea, this paper conducts a conjoint experiment included in a survey of Spanish mayors, in order to reveal a causal relationship between socio-demographic characteristics (i.e., gender, age, and education) and the willingness to form a coalition; as well as the mechanisms that explain why individual characteristics might matter. Although the experimental data suggests that traditional theories seem to be the main drivers of the decision of choosing a partner, it shows that personal characteristics also have a role in predicting the choice of a candidate to form a coalition government. This paper presents a new way into how party leaders decide which candidates to choose for a coalition government, as well as it contributes to our understanding of the role of individual characteristics in political selection process.

Intra-elite conicts shape the democratization process and have eects on fiscal and state capacity. However, much of the literature focuses on elite splits at the national level, disregarding the eects of regional–central intra-elite conicts. This dissertation lls this void by focusing in the origin and consequences of regional elites’ split in Catalonia in the early 20th century. First, it focuses on the conditions under which certain regional elites decide to split and successfully promote their new political party. The main argument is that economic preferences, economic shocks and previous identity mobilization play a relevant role in the decision to split. Economic divergences and identity exacerbate the divide between elites; identity, additionally, facilitates the mobilization of a cross-class coalition of voters in support of the regional emerging elites. Second, it tests to what extent the split can improve democratization practices. Mobilization of the electorate and electoral surveillance are some of the mechanisms regional elites used to ensure their electoral success and, collaterally, cope with electoral fraud. Thus, despite previously existing electoral fraud mechanisms, the emergence of regional elites hinders the capacity of central elites to engage in manipulation practices. Third, it focuses on the policies developed by these regional elites. To what extent regional elites, lacking the access to basic state tools (institutional manipulation, control of legitimate violence, etc.), invest in programmatic public policies to consolidate their power and the support of a cross-class coalition of voters? By focusing on the investment in communication infrastructures (telephones) and human capital policies (agricultural courses) it will be possible to ascertain whether these policies were dierently designed and which were their political eects. By delving into the origins of elite splits in Catalonia, this dissertation argues that the presence of strong and organized regional elites facilitated the implementation of more democratic practices and dierent programmatic public policies in the region despite the semi-competitive authoritarian nature of the political regime.

The coexistence of harsh disapproval of corruption and the rather limited electoral consequences of malfeasant behavior is still a paradox in the social sciences. While elections are expected to serve as an instrument to hold politicians accountable, studies conducted in multiple countries indicate that voters’ punishment of malfeasant politicians is rather limited. One of the potential explanations for this paradox is that citizens trade integrity for competence in delivering outcomes when casting a vote. Previous studies have mostly assessed whether a politician’s competence in delivering outcomes indirectly affects (moderates) the negative effects of corruption on the vote. This paper explicitly focuses on voters’ priorities and assesses what citizens treasure the most: integrity or outcomes. We argue that examining a situation that poses a direct dilemma between obtaining an optimal societal outcome and respecting the law is the ideal way to assess voters’ priorities. Drawing on an original survey experiment conducted through a representative sample of the Spanish population (N = 1,200), we examine the likelihood of participants voting for a politician that faces a dilemma in a public bidding process in which violating the procedure established by the law leads to the optimal societal outcome. In addition, we analyze the causal mechanisms that explains the link between observing a politician of the preferred party defying the law and the likelihood to vote for her. The results indicate that respondents prefer a politician who follows the law even when this implies achieving a suboptimal outcome. Trustworthiness is the main mediator that drives the reduction in the propensity to vote for a crooked politician. However, voters are more likely to accept legal violations when these serve to improve the conditions of the community and the politician does not personally benefit from breaking the law.