Social norms and stigmatized political behavior

Abstract

How do norms related to politics change? I draw upon norms related to two major stigmas in advanced industrial democracies: radical-right ideology and behavior associated with previous authoritarian regimes. Using original measures and sources of data, I illustrate ways in which these norms can change and make individuals become more willing to engage in previously stigmatized behavior. Chapter 1 uses a novel measure of how stigmatized it is to report support for the radical right, based on the proportion of the official vote for a party that is reported in post-electoral surveys. Using three different empirical approaches (regression discontinuity design, comparison of different modes of interview, and difference in differences), I show that once radical-right parties enter parliament their voters become significantly more comfortable in expressing their support. Chapter 2 looks into whether a similar finding can be replicated at the elite level. Using a newly collected dataset of speeches in German state parliaments, the analyses show that after radical-right politicians enter these parliaments the remaining politicians make their discourse more distant to that of the radical right. A mix of quantitative and qualitative analyses suggest that this is driven by their desire to portray themselves as the enforcers of the norms breached by radical-right politicians. Chapter 3 uses a novel dataset of flags displayed in the façade of buildings to show that the process of Catalan independence normalized public expressions of Spanish nationalism—which were previously stigmatized due to their association with authoritarianism. Chapter 4 proposes ways in which political scientists can measure normative influences with recourse to observational data, based on the approaches used throughout the thesis.