The Comparative Politics Seminar Series in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute is a venue for the presentation of work in progress by scholars from across the subfield of comparative politics.
It usually takes place on Thursdays from 17:00 to 18:30 at Seminar Room 2, in Badia Fiesolana (Fiesole). See below or sync the calendar for the exact location for each meeting. See previous events.
The series is organized by Elias Dinas, Simon Hix, and Filip Kostelka, Sascha Riaz, with support by Paloma Abril Poncelaand Carmen Ramirez Folch.
Thursday 23 January 2025 | Seminar Room 2
Ethnic minorities and democratic support
Ethnicity and democracy are generally expected to be at odds with each other. However, studies rarely engage with the democratic preferences and minorities and fail to consider democracy as a multifaceted concept, combining majoritarian decision-making with counter-majoritarian rights protection. This project argues that ethnic minorities view democracy in light of their position within the polity. Their democratic preferences are not unidimensional, but rather depend on the specific aspect of democracy. The project investigates four core tenets of democracy: electoral democracy, liberal democracy, social rights, and people rule; as well as three oppositions to democracy: populism, illiberalism, and authoritarianism. The project demonstrates that minorities differ in their focus on distinct aspects of democracy. Minorities with a more precarious association to the majority-dominated state – eastern European historical minorities and western European Muslims – are particularly concerned about liberal democracy and social rights, while being more hesitant about electoral and popular democracy. Minorities more rooted within the existing state – western European historical minorities – show lower concern for democracy in general.
Thursday 13 February 2025 | Seminar Room 2
Processing Economic Signals: Voter Responses to Growth, Unemployment, Inflation and Stock Markets
Economic voting theory suggests that voters reward incumbents for strong economic performance and punish them for weak performance. However, this view often ignores the multidimensional nature of the economy. Hence, we lack systematic evidence about how voters simultaneously process multiple economic signals. This study provides a comprehensive examination of how voters respond to four key economic dimensions: growth, unemployment, inflation, and stock markets. We develop a theoretical framework distinguishing between different types of economic reasoning: macroeconomic, egotropic, sociotropic, and distributive reasoning. We first use descriptive data from OECD countries to understand the economy’s dimensionality and analyze survey data from national election studies to assess the impact on economic evaluations. Finally, we present findings from survey experiments conducted in Germany, Sweden, and the United States, tailored to analyze the impact of the four economic dimensions in an ideal information setting. Our results reveal interesting patterns in how voters process economic information. Voters can discern relationships between economic dimensions and their effects on personal and economic circumstances, and distributional outcomes. Subsequently, all four signals independently affect preferences for economic policy and voting intentions. Inflation emerges as a dominant factor, shaping personal and national economic evaluations. Our findings challenge traditional approaches to economic voting by exploring how voters integrate multiple economic signals. By emphasizing the multidimensionality of economic signals, we highlight implications for democratic accountability.
Thursday 27 February 2025 | Seminar Room 2
Violent Civilian Agency. The logic of civilian-to-civilian killings: insights from the Korean War.
The concept of violent civilian agency in wartime remains largely unexplored. Challenging the prevailing view of civilians as passive victims or bystanders of violence, we propose a theory of pre-emptive civilian killings to explain the motive, timing, and location of incidents where civilians proactively turn to violence against each other during conflicts. Our argument suggests that civilian-on-civilian violence primarily occurs in areas where locals have collaborated with occupying military forces. Specifically, collaborators may engage in preemptive killings of non-collaborators to prevent whistleblowing but also prevent victims’ revenge, especially as invading forces retreat and rival armed groups advance. We empirically test this theory using geocoded event data from the Korean War (1950–1953), focusing on civilian violence patterns surrounding the North Korean troops’ abrupt retreat, ordered by Kim Il-sung. Our findings reveal a significant increase in pre-emptive civilian killings following the retreat, particularly in regions with high levels of prior collaboration. This study makes three key contributions: it highlights the concept of violent agency among civilians, theorizes the conditions under which such agency emerges, and empirically tests these ideas using novel data. By shedding light on civilian behaviour in war, our work reveals how specific incentives and opportunities can lead civilians to become active perpetrators of violence against one another.
Thursday 20 March 2025 | Seminar Room 2
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Thursday 27 March 2025 | Seminar Room 2
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