Sofia Breitenstein (UB), Toni Rodon (UPF), Guillem Riambau (UB)
The resurgence of the rural-urban divide, influencing distinct political preferences and attitudes, has become a topic of increasing discussion among the public and academics. While this shift in cleavage structure should manifest in collective identities, it remains unclear whether individuals possess a group consciousness based on their geographic location and how they express these identities. Existing research is limited in several aspects, primarily focusing on the US context, rural populations, and failing to examine the interaction between place-based identities and other social identities. To address these gaps, this paper employs quantitative text analysis to study the responses to open- ended questions within a survey conducted in Spain. Our analysis aims to determine (i) the extent to which urban and rural identities exist independently from other identities such as social class, ideology, and gender, (ii) and the stereotypes employed in describing rural and urban residents. Preliminary results suggest that, in the absence of priming, place-based identities exhibit minimal emergence. While other group identities based on age, social class, ideology, and gender manifest prominently. However, stereotypes toward the out-group persist. Rural participants describe city dwellers as stressed, overwhelmed, and independent, contrasting them with their in-group, which is perceived as supportive and easy-going. Conversely, urban participants depict rural residents as enjoying a traditional and simple life, while characterizing their in-group as respectful, diverse, educated, and modern. These findings bear implications for understanding the multifaceted nature of identity formation and stereotypes in the context of the rural-urban divide, shedding light on potential factors influencing political behavior and social cohesion.
Fernando de la Cuesta (Universidad Complutense de Madrid)
The provision of public goods and services, particularly in the context of decentralization, has garnered significant research attention. However, the potential repercussions of these provisions on the political system and electoral behavior have remained relatively unexplored. This paper seeks to address this research gap by examining the impact of public goods distribution on electoral preferences and political dynamics. Using Geographic Regression Discontinuity (GRD) analysis on geolocated voting and survey data, this study reveals that citizens residing in places with less favorable access to public goods tend to express stronger support for recentralization, particularly favoring Populist Radical Right (PRR) parties. This finding sheds light on a novel and unexpected consequence of decentralization, where territorial inequalities in public service access are exacerbated. The paper's contributions are multifaceted. Firstly, it uncovers a previously overlooked downside of decentralization by highlighting the widening territorial disparities in public goods and services access. This insight introduces fresh perspectives to the spatial analysis of decentralization processes. Moreover, it offers an empirical account of the rise of radical right-wing populist parties (RPPs), with a specific focus on Spain, elucidating a phenomenon that has hitherto been inadequately understood.
Alberto de León (University College Dublin, Ireland), Silvia Clavería (University Carlos III of Madrid, Spain)
In recent times, the rural-urban divide has once again been highlighted. While existing research has primarily focused on citizens; attitudes towards this issue, there remains a gap in our understanding of how political parties have contributed to this division. This article aims to address this gap in two main ways. Firstly, it seeks to explore whether the significance of the rural-urban cleavage has increased in recent parliamentary debates and the circumstances under which political parties prioritize this issue. Secondly, it aims to examine the individual factors within Members of Parliament (MPs) that influence the prominence of this discourse during their sessions. We also analyze the sentiment of these mentions to address how MPs behave through rural-urban debates. Utilizing data from legislative sessions in Spain, we will employ dictionary-supervised text analysis to examine Spanish parliamentary interventions. In that sense, we discuss the use of geographical representation as a measure of rural-urban cleavage. Using this supervised methodology, we seek to investigate specifically rural-urban mentions rather than the common proxy of geographical representation. This longitudinal analysis holds significant implications for understanding the rural-urban dynamics of political parties, as well as providing insights into the political behavior of MPs within multilevel governance systems through quantitative text analysis.
Rebeca G-Antuña (EUI)
Resentment is defined as the sense of unfairness and indignation felt by individuals when comparing their circumstances to those of others. This emo- tional state has been linked to the support for far-right parties among rural voters in Western democracies(Cramer, 2016; Mamonova and Franquesa, 2020; Rickardsson, 2021. . . 1 ). One of the most significant cases is that of Spain and the increase of the vote in rural areas for VOX. However, the specific factors that trigger the so-called Rural Resentment remain unclear.
This paper aims to investigate the efficacy of economic issues and cultural values in the activation of Rural Resentment among citizens. A novel survey ex- periment conducted in rural and urban areas of Spain will be used to disentangle the psychological mechanisms behind this feeling of resentment. Uncovering the mechanisms that activate this feeling and analyzing its variations among voters will allow us to shed light on the implications it holds for voting behavior during the period of higher political mobilization: The general elections. Contributing to the literature on political psychology, the anticipated findings are poised to enhance our understanding of the activation of rural resentment and pave the way for addressing its impact on the support for far-right political parties across Europe
Antonia Lang (Goethe University Frankfurt), Rubén García del Horno (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona), Alina Zumbrunn (University of Bern)
In recent times, there has been an upsurge in research on the rural-urban divide. A consensus is emerging within the academic community, recognizing that place of residence is influential for a number of political attitudes and behaviours, and that place can be understood as a distinct social identity. However, this raises the question of where this identity and the associated feelings of resentment come from in the first place. We address this question by drawing upon social identity theory and the contact hypothesis as theoretical frameworks. Our study delves into the explanatory power of several key variables, including place of residence while growing up, number of moves, length of residence, contact with people from the same and other places of living, and preferred place of residence. We argue that a person’s individual mobility history mainly influences the level of identification, while frequency of contact with people from other types of place influences resentment. Our empirical analysis leverages a comprehensive dataset encompassing responses from more than 16,000 individuals across four European countries, collected in the year 2022. In this way, we can show which factors are decisive in building a social identity from place of living. Our results not only contribute to a deeper understanding of the ramifications associated with place-based identity and place- based resentment, but also are crucial for addressing and ameliorating the divide between rural and urban areas.
Jose Maycas (University Carlos III of Madrid)
Recent decades have witnessed significant transformations in Western societies, particularly in the transition towards post-industrial economies. Urban and social changes accompanying this shift have reshaped primary hubs of social interaction, local communities, altering interpersonal relationships and socialization dynamics. This study investigates how these changes affect social capital by leveraging a quasi-experimental framework. I exploit the resurgence of the Way of Saint James that led to an increase in the tourist population in the affected municipalities and a subsequent community transformation to a service-oriented economy. To see whether this erodes communities’ civic networks, I use association density and political participation as indicators of civic engagement and social capital. I develop a TWFE identification strategy and I show that exposed areas, compared to their counterparts, experienced a decline in association density and turnout. This decline is attributed to the multifaceted impact of tertiarization at the local level, manifesting in altered physical spaces, transformed economic structures and shifts in demographic dynamics. Through this study, I contribute to a nuanced understanding of the consequences of modernization on community social networks.
Guillem Riambau
Previous research has shown that prosocial behavior varies depending on whether beneficiaries of such behavior are perceived to be in-group or out-group members. We test whether this holds when such pro-social behavior is essentially costless using a representative sample from Spain. Individuals are asked to think of a number between 1 and 6. Before reporting the number, they are told that the equivalent sum in euros will be donated to a particular NGO. We choose two very similar NGOs that work with refugees, one from Madrid and one from Catalonia. We find little evidence of discrimination: individuals give on average the same amount to both regardless of their own location. We however find that donations vary depending on the goal of the NGO. A pro-Catalan culture NGO based in Catalonia, and a pro-LGTBQ NGO based in Madrid receive significantly fewer funds than the other two. We discuss the implications of these findings.
Guillem Rico (UAB), Enrique Hernández (UAB), Rubén García del Horno (UAB)
Research on political representation has extensively explored the descriptive and substantive representation of social groups based on gender, income, class, ethnicity, education, or age. However, despite mounting evidence of increasing differences in political attitudes and behavior between cities and the countryside in several advanced democracies, a frequently overlooked aspect in this field is place-based representation along the rural-urban divide, that is, the extent to which rural and urban dwellers are given an equal voice in political institutions. This paper seeks to close this gap by developing and testing an analytical framework that addresses the methodological challenges involved in measuring this form of representation both in substantive and descriptive terms. Our empirical contribution is threefold. First, we use cross-national public and expert survey data to analyze the convergence between parties’ and voters’ issue positions depending on the degree of urbanization of the latter’s place of residence. Second, we assess how well national parliaments mirror the rural-urban composition of populations in several European countries. Finally, drawing on data from a unique survey in Spain, we examine citizens’ perceptions of the rural-urban provenance of elected officials and how such perceptions relate to political satisfaction and support for correcting measures. Results show that rural citizens are descriptively underrepresented in national parliaments, albeit to varying degrees across countries. Moreover, perceived descriptive underrepresentation among rural citizens correlates with demands for more rural MPs. Finally, rural residents appear to be only slightly further apart from parties in terms of left-right alignment and only certain issue positions.
Toni Rodon (UPF) & Maria Delgado-García
Public realm interventions are a common tool employed by policymakers to improve deprived areas and enhance the economic performance of specific areas. Place-based policies are often targeted to disadvantaged areas and their residents with the goal of having a positive impact on people’s most familiar surroundings, their quality life, and their social capital. Yet, the retrofitting of public spaces may generate negative externalities, such as gentrification and changes in the composition of the population. Despite the importance of public realm initiatives, and that they are often employed as a credit-claiming strategy, surprisingly little attention has been devoted to understanding their impact on political behaviour. This article investigates the electoral consequences of the Catalan Neighbourhood Law, a soft planning strategy aimed at transforming designated urban areas, particularly those with acute deficits, into more livable and sustainable spaces. The empirical analysis relies on different empirical strategies. First, we utilise a staggered Difference-in-Differences approach to assess whether the NL interventions affected electoral support for the incumbent or the opposition. More concretely, we compare executed projects with a control group that considers projects that did not meet the threshold to be funded. Second, we use individual-level data and explore the political attitudes of citizens residing in areas affected by NL interventions. Finally, we probe some of the mechanisms through interviews. The analysis shows that in areas affected by NL interventions the main member of the coalition government and the party that used it as a tool to campaign was punished in the polls. This article has important implications for our understanding of the relationship between urban policies and political behaviour.
Álvaro Sánchez-García (USAL)
In the last few years, we have witnessed of renaissance of the traditional rural-urban divide. Increasingly, we have seen that a lot of scholars have appealed to this cleavage to explain the rise of the Populist Radical Right Parties as well as new agrarian parties. Parallel to this phenomenon has been the emergence of what is known as “place-based resentment” (Munis, 2022). Defined by Huijsmans (2022) “a perception of unfair socioeconomic, cultural and political inequality between the own area and other areas”, is an expression of polarisation from a geographical perspective. In this line, the division is established between people living in municipalities of the same typology as ours (in-group) versus people living in other types of municipalities (out-group). In general, resentment has not been symmetrical but has been more on the part of people living in rural areas against those living in cities (Borwein y Lucas, 2023; Cramer, 2016).
Most of these studies have focused on the Netherlands, the United States or Canada. We selected Spain as a case study. A country particularly favourable because of its large territorial imbalances between rural areas and cities as well as a large number of rural municipalities. To address this issue, we use the indicator proposed by Munis constructed with data obtained from a survey carried out by the Research Project: "Geography, polarization and the rural-urban divide in the XXI century" funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation of the Government of Spain.
The aim of this research is to find out whether place-based resentment has had any effect on voting behaviour. We also study whether there is a significantly different impact on voting depending on whether it is rural resentment or urban resentment. Furthermore, thanks to the geolocation of the survey, we are able to take contextual controls on the municipality in which respondents reside.
David M. Willumsen (University of Innsbruck), Pedro Riera (University Carlos III of Madrid)
While a substantial literature explores the drivers of satisfaction with democracy, the potential effects of geography on this political attitude have so far been ignored. Both centre-periphery and urban-rural dynamics have substantial potential for influencing the extent to which voters are satisfied with democratic rule, yet we know little about the functioning and effects of such dynamics. Seeking to overcome this lacuna, in this paper, we combine CSES survey data with measures of geographical centrality in a country to explore how the distance of a respondent’s electoral constituency from the national capital and the size of the place they live in influences levels of satisfaction with democracy. Using data covering 16 countries over a period of 25 years, we find that distance between the electoral district and the national capital lowers satisfaction with democracy. We also show that an interactive relationship exists between geographical distance and habitat size, with distance to the capital having a less negative effect in larger habitats. We further explore the political effects of this apparent geographical isolation and find that distance to the capital also lowers turnout.