Place and Policy Preferences – Spatial Divides in Attitudes towards Social Policies in Germany

Abstract

The rise of the knowledge economy has led to a bifurcation between prosperous, often urban, areas and "left-behind" regions. While the literature has started to analyse the political implications of these developments for electoral behaviour and socio-cultural attitudes, the structuring of social policy preferences by place remains unclear. Distinguishing between an economic (booming-declining) and a geographic (urban-rural) dimension, I argue that differences in material self-interest and ideological predispositions explain spatial divides in support for different types of social policies.Combining original survey data on voters' preferences with municipal-level data in Germany, I show that general support for social policy is higher in declining than in booming regions.However, social investments (e.g., active labour market policies) are preferred over consumption policies (e.g., unemployment benefits) in booming and, to a smaller degree, in urban than in declining and rural regions. These findings contribute to a bigger discussion on compensating "left-behind" regions. ZusammenfassungDie zunehmend wissensbasierte Wirtschaft hat zu einer Zweiteilung zwischen wohlhabenden, oft städtischen Gebieten und «abgehängten» Regionen geführt. Während die politischen Auswirkungen dieser Entwicklungen auf das Wahlverhalten und die soziokulturellen Einstellungen zunehmend analysiert werden, bleibt die Strukturierung sozialpolitischer Präferenzen nach Regionen unklar. Ich unterscheide zwischen einer wirtschaftlichen (Aufschwung-Abschwung) und einer geografischen (Stadt-Land) Dimension und argu-

Does raising awareness about inequality decrease support for school closures? An information treatment survey experiment during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…fertility intentions; see Hank & Huinink, 2002). Local exposure to climate change has been associated with green voting (Hoffmann et al, 2022), local infection rates with vaccine hesitancy (Steinert et al, 2022) and local economic performance with social investment policies, following a pattern of self-interest (Pinggera, 2023). We therefore test whether individuals who differ in their past exposure to school-closure policies exhibit different associations between information treatments and policy preferences.…”