📌 What Was Tested
This research argues that greater economic and political integration pushes voter preferences toward cross-national convergence rather than divergence.
📊 Data: Voter Preferences in 30 Democracies, 1976–2022
- Uses voter preference data from 30 European democracies covering 1976–2022.
- Measures the similarity of preference distributions across state dyads over time.
- Documents an average increase in cross-national similarity of voter preferences across the study period.
🔍 How the Relationship Was Assessed
- Statistical models relate temporal changes in preference similarity to economic and political integration measures.
- Key independent variables include similarity and complementarity in economic production and co-participation in the European Union and the Eurozone.
🔎 Key Findings
- Greater similarity and complementarity in economic production are associated with increasingly similar voter preferences across countries.
- Co-participation in the European Union and the Eurozone is also linked to rising cross-national preference similarity.
- These associations are robust in the dyadic, longitudinal analysis of preference distributions.
🌐 Why It Matters
- Broadens understanding of how globalization reshapes domestic political preferences.
- Provides theoretical and empirical grounding for literatures on the cross-national diffusion of party strategies and on the political effects of macroeconomic shocks (for example, trade shocks or banking crises).
