Research on the growing support of radical right parties cannot ignore the role of spatial, contextual effects and geographical proximity. One important spatial factor is the halo effect, which ...suggests that a radical right party is more likely to perform well in a homogeneous electoral district surrounded by ethnically diverse areas. Voter behaviour is influenced by certain neighbourhood effects, which can be spatially distant, originating from neighbouring areas. In this way, the presence of groups more inclined to support the radical right in an area can, through interaction and observations of signs or norms, modify an individual's party preference. In this paper, I model the 2018 election results of the Sweden Democrats at the level of the 6004 Swedish electoral districts using the Spatial Durbin Model specification. The spatial model shows a better fit and indicates a spillover effect of the level of education and median wealth in addition to the contextual role of ethnic diversity and its change. Changes in the proportion of non‐Europeans in neighbouring areas have had a particularly strong spillover effect, which is associated with the growing support for the Sweden Democrats.
Tourism plays a key role for gay people, as it is not only a way to escape from work, but also a source of liberation and self-embracement. This role can be particularly valued in societies and ...political environments that are perceived as hostile toward this group. The present study examines the travel motivations and habits of gay and lesbian people, based on a questionnaire sample of 1473 respondents. The results show that for this group, but especially for women, acceptance and an open culture are of paramount importance when choosing a destination. In contrast, services and events specifically targeted at this sector, which are popular in the Western world, do not typically influence decision-making (they tend to be more attractive to women). Sex per se is not a travel motivator for this group, but is an important feature of travel for men. In addition to gender, the services and activities that an individual engages in while traveling are influenced by the degree of their sexual embracement, the place of residence and the company with which the individual travels.
PurposeThe purpose of this analysis is to collect and classify the most important diversity indices, outline the logical connections between them and answer the following question: How much will the ...results differ if the authors use different indices for explaining the same dependent variable (attitude toward cultural pluralism), and what kind of relationships are observable in the European societies?Design/methodology/approachThe diversity indices are good for compressing information on the number and shares of ethnic groups in a given setting into single numbers in order to use them as independent variables. However, it matters which index the authors choose because it can make a meaningful difference in the assessment of the potential impacts of diversification. Our empirical study (based on 43 European countries and 160 regions) concluded that the correlation coefficients between the most important indices are above 0.8. Thus, in practice, none of them gives a fundamentally different answer to the question: how does diversity/diversification influences people's attitudes toward multiculturalism.FindingsBy linking these results with the European Social Survey database the authors concluded that the more diverse a population in 2014 was, a more positive attitude toward multiculturalism was expressed. However, if the authors focus on the dynamics of diversification, the spread of points is much greater and polynomial (U-shaped curvilinear) trendlines are better suitable to grasp the relationships. It means that people tend to react very differently to similar societal changes in those regions where a moderate degree of diversification took place.Originality/valueInternational migration and ethno-cultural diversification are hotly debated issues in contemporary Europe, and there is a growing interest in understanding their possible social, economic and political outcomes. A question of key importance for the social sciences to adequately answer the challenges is the capability to measure these processes in a quantitative way as well. This paper helps decide which diversity index might be the optimum solution for a given research project.
The rise of the radical right parties, with their anti-immigrant rhetoric, may amplify the generally observed negative impact of diversity on generalised trust. The impact of the conservative climate ...created by these parties is apparent at the national level, but the little research carried out in the field has yet to examine the role of their local political power. In Sweden, the literature suggests that the radical right Sweden Democrats party has a stronger anti-immigration and ethnonationalist rhetoric at the local level, which may reduce the generalised trust of residents by triggering conflict theory. Calculating the conservative climate based on the percentage of party representatives on local councils using multi-level modelling, we observe that the contextual effect of the conservative climate is present and reduces generalised trust. However, the underlying cause of this effect is not fully known. It can be traced back to the party’s local politics, the residents and the local media.
The majority of experts consider ethnicisation the defining factor in Bosnia and Herzegovina's political life. Our objective is to uncover what other factors affect party performance and what, if ...any, territorial pattern different from the ethnic one, can be drawn. We argue, based on quantitative analyses, that besides the "ethnic rule", other social cleavages (like the urban-rural one) with territorial patterns are also present in the country, though they are less significant. In the the entity of Federation ethnic polarisation is a significant contextual factor, while in the party competition of the entity of Republic of Srpska mainly non-ethnic factors are decisive.
The starting point of electoral geographical analyses is that the geographical context influences voter behavior and party preferences. The role of context is particularly salient for radical right ...parties. The halo effect and neighborhoods' heterogeneity can also strengthen the radical right in a homogeneous central area. This research further expands the role of diversity as a contextual effect based on the 2018 Swedish parliamentary elections results. This study at the electoral district level has demonstrated that the rate of diversification plays an important role and generates a vote-boosting effect in the neighborhood of rapidly diversifying electoral districts. The halo effect theory was confirmed by the ethnic polarization index; a homogeneous central electoral district with polarized neighboring districts can also validate the conflict theory and generate extra votes for the radical right party. The study also looked at the relative economic deprivation of neighboring electoral districts, but this did not lead to clear results owing to the strong correlation between economic status and diversity. A worse economic situation relative to neighboring areas was only found to have a significant Sweden Democrat vote-boosting effect in areas with diverse neighboring areas.
Electoral geography tends to focus on the impact of geographical context on electoral behavior recently and challenges the classical compositional approach. We analyze spatial contextual factors of ...the 2018 general elections of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the linear regression models based on the fault line theory result in wrong estimations in several municipalities, not fitting into the national pattern. Using spatial modelling, it is confirmed that the strong territorial base of Bosnian parties is shaped by spatial dependence and spatial spillover effects. In addition to the spillover effect of individual party performance, the indirect neighbourhood role of ethnicity, sectoral structure and education was also shown in some cases.
The European Green Capital Award (EGCA) has been given to cities that can serve as role models for other cities in responding to environmental challenges with innovative solutions and contributing to ...the development of more sustainable and healthier cities. This study examines 100 of the 110 cities that applied for the award by the round of 2024 based on quantitative data that could measure the environmental awareness of those cities. The variables were selected in line with the topics of the EGCA call for proposals. Exploratory data analysis (EDA) was used to reveal the differences between the two groups, finalists and applicants who were nonshortlisted. Based on Mann-Whitney U tests and chi-square tests, the values of the finalists were convincingly more favorable for only 10 variables. To identify the variables with the strongest relationship with the outcome of the application, a logistic regression was performed after a dimension reduction carried out with multiple factor analysis (MFA). The model can be applied with high accuracy mainly in the category of nonshortlisted candidates (there are several erroneous estimates for the winners), which suggests that other, nonmeasurable criteria are also influencing factors. The model, with some limitations, can also be used by cities that also want to compete in the future to assess their chances before submitting their application.
Jelen tanulmány az etnokulturális sokszínuségnek a társadalmi kohézió változására gyakorolt hatását vizsgálta a svédországi Västra Götaland megyében, ahol 2014 és 2018 között gyors ütemben emelkedett ...a bevándorlók száma. A sokszínuség vizsgálatához a szerzok a bevándorlók aránya és a klasszikus fragmentációs index mellett egy kulturális paraméterekkel súlyozott sokszínuségi indexet használtak, míg a társadalmi kohéziót az általánosított, illetve a lokalizált bizalommal elemezték, amihez kérdoíves felméréseket vettek igénybe. A kutatás során alkalmazott többszintu modellezéssel az egyéni változók szerepe mellett kimutathatóvá vált a vizsgált községek és városrészek sokszínuségének hatása is. Az általánosított bizalomra a sokszínuség a többszintu modellek és a korreláció eredménye alapján sem gyakorolt hatást, függetlenül a mérési módszertol (kisebbségek aránya, súlyozatlan és súlyozott fragmentációs index), az egyéni változókból viszont jól kikövetkeztheto az egyén bizalmi szintje. A lokalizált bizalomra azonban már negatív hatással van az etnikai sokszínuség, ugyanis az etnikailag vegyes községekben vagy városrészekben a lakosok alacsonyabb lokalizált bizalommal rendelkeznek, ami igazolja a konfliktuselmélet továbbgondolását, miszerint az etnikailag vegyes területeken élés általánosságban alacsonyabb bizalomhoz vezet. A sokszínuségi indexek és a bevándorlók arányának használata között a modellek illeszkedésében nincs különbség.
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