Research

Publications

DUTHILLEUL Laura (2023). « Le Patriotisme des démocraties et la montée du populisme à l'aune de l'économie » In :Patriotismes et Sociétés. Dynamiques et permanences d’un fait social. Sous la direction d'Axel AUGÉ. Éditions Lamarque. ISBN: 978-2-490-64392-9. URL: https://www.editionslamarque.fr/livres/patriotismes-et-societes/.

Work-in-progress

This paper aims to reconcile the theoretical and empirical literature on the relationship between income inequality and satisfaction with democracy by exploring the mechanisms linking these two variables. Using the 3rd and 4th EVS data, we test four different measures of income inequality: the Gini index (sociotropic effective income inequality), unemployment rate (sociotropic visible income inequality), household income (egotropic effective income inequality) and unemployed status (egotropic visible income inequality). In this paper, we analyse democracy support at two geographical levels: at country level (international analysis) and at department level (analysis of a single country, France). We estimate a multilevel model with random effects using democracy support in two ways: with the traditional variable of satisfaction with democracy and by extension with the support for alternative political systems to democracy (autocratic, technocratic or military). We find that, at international and French levels, sociotropic income inequality (effective and visible) has no significant effect on democracy support. On the contrary, greater egotropic income inequality leads to both lower satisfaction with democracy and stronger support for alternative political systems to democracy. We go further in this analysis by stipulating that the effects of sociotropic and egotropic income inequality on democracy support are significantly conditioned by partisanship: at a given level of income inequality, as they are more sensitive to income inequality than right-wing partisans, left-wing partisans share a significant lower democracy support.
In this paper, we analyse the link between unemployment and populist votes. We propose to deal with some aspects of unemployment : egotropic/sociotropic unemployment, current/accumulated unemployment as well as voters' own explanation of unemployment. We use French presidential Election Studies (FES) from 2002 (when the Front National reached the second round) to the 2017 election, characterised by the electoral success of both right-wing and left-wing populist parties in France. By including the vote for the incumbent and the mainstream opposition, we take into account the entire political space and its influence on the populist vote. For this purpose, we use two econometric methods : multinomial logit and nested logit estimations. We find a positive link between unemployment and both right-wing and left-wing populist votes : egotropic current unemployment (i.e. being unemployed) and egotropic and sociotropic accumulated unemployment (i.e. the personal risk of unemployment and department long-term unemployment rate) encourage voters to choose not mainstream parties but populist parties. The distinction between right-wing and left-wing populist votes lies on the voters' own explanation of unemployment : basically, when voters consider that unemployment is mostly due to immigration, they will be more prone to vote for a right-wing populist party rather than a left-wing populist party. 
In this paper, we analyse the economic relationship between European funds and populist vote in EP election, at voter level. We use the 2004, 2009, 2014 and 2019 European Election Studies (EES) and the "Historic EU payments - regionalised and modelled" database made by the European Commission - DG Regional. We find that one-percentage-point increase in EU funds per capita at NUTS2 level during the last MEP mandate corresponds ceteris paribus to a decrease of around 2% in the individual probability to vote for a populist party in EP election. We contribute to the literature by testing for the first time the conditioned effect of EU funds on populist vote in EP election by the populist nature of national and regional incumbents. We investigate whether there is a significant difference between voters with a populist incumbent and those with a non-populist incumbent regarding the relationship between EU funds and their individual probability to vote for a populist party in EP election. We do not find any empirical evidence of this difference : whatever the nature of the incumbent (populist or non-populist), EU funds always have a negative link with populist vote in EP election, at voter level. 
This study attempts to explore the answer for the question: is there any minimum/threshold level of education that is inevitable to strengthen the democratic process in order to avoid these authoritarian episodes? By using data from different waves (1997, 2001 and 2012) of WVS (World Value Survey) for Pakistan and based on logit and 2SLS regression estimates we find that respondents’ education level is key factor responsible for supporting dictatorship and respondents having university degree attach great importance towards supporting the  democracy, even during the army rule. Moreover, we find that living in Punjab province and having high education reinforce the support for democratic regime. 

Conference and Seminars Presentations

                                                                               Speaker for "European funds : a shield against populism ? Evidence from EP elections" 


                                                                              Speaker for "Les fonds européens, un bouclier efficace contre le populisme : le sentiment patriotique européen à l'épreuve" 


                                                                              Speaker for "Unemployment : populist vote's motto" 


                                                                              Speaker for "Unemployment : populist vote's motto" 


                                                                              Speaker for "Unemployment : populist vote's motto" 


                                                                              Speaker for "Unemployment : populist vote's motto" 

                                                                              Discutant to Nanna Lauritz SCHÖNHAGE (APEC, Vrije Universiteit Brussel) and Benny GEYS (Norwegian Business School - 

                                                                              BI)'s paper : "Exit or Voice ? Politicians’ Reactions to Scandals that Damage the Party Brand"

    

                                                                             Presentation of "Unemployment : populist vote's motto"


                                                                              Speaker with Maqsood ASLAM of "Education: a shield to dictatorship? Evidence from Pakistan " - with Maqsood ASLAM

                                                                              Discutant to Nicolas LAGIOS (ULB, CEB), Pierre-Guillaume MÉON (ULB, CEB) & Ilan TOJEROW (SBS-EM, ULB, DULBEA, CEB, 

                                                                              IZA)'s paper : "Does it pay off to demonstrate against the far right ?"

                                                                              Discutant to Nadiya UKRAYINCHUK (LEM) & Hubert JAYET (LEM)'s paper : "Immigration issue in French presidential 

                                                                              election choice"

        

                                                                              Presentation by Maqsood ASLAM of "Education: a shield to dictatorship? Evidence from Pakistan " - authors : Laura 

                                                                              DUTHILLEUL and Maqsood ASLAM

                                                          

                                                                            Speaker for "Do economic inequalities poison democracy ?" - with Quentin DAVID and Abel FRANÇOIS

                                                                    

                                                                            Speaker for "Do economic inequalities poison democracy ?" - with Quentin DAVID and Abel FRANÇOIS

                                                                            Discutant to Adilzhan ISMAILOV (University Pompeu Fabra) & Antonio CICCONE (Mannheim University)'s paper : "Income

                                                                            inequality and political transitions" 


                                                                            Presentation of "Do economic inequalities poison democracy ?" - with Quentin DAVID and Abel FRANÇOIS


                                                                               Local committee with Nicolas OOGHE

                                                                              Discutant to Caroline Le Pennec-Caldichoury (UC Berkeley)'s paper : "Political Discourse and Competition: An analysis of 

                                                                              campaign manifestos at French legislative elections from 1958 to 1993" 


                                                                           Presentation of my thesis project and beginning of my first article : "Do economic inequalities poison democracy ?" 

Science popularization

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