Minority Salience and Political Extremism

Tommaso Colussi (), Ingo Isphording and Nico Pestel
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Tommaso Colussi: Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

No def080, DISCE - Working Papers del Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza from Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE)

Abstract: We investigate how changes in the salience of a minority group affect the majority group’s voting behavior. Specifically, we focus on Muslim communities and their increased salience in daily life during Ramadan. To estimate a causal effect, we exploit exogenous variation in the distance of German federal and state elections to the month of Ramadan over the 1980–2013 period. Our findings reveal an increased polarization of the electorate: vote shares for both right- and left-wing extremist parties increase in municipalities where mosques are located when the election date is closer to Ramadan. We use individual-level survey data to provide evidence on potential mechanisms. During Ramadan respondents perceive the share of foreign-born people living in their country as larger and reveal more negative attitudes towards Muslims. We complement these findings with evidence on increased numbers of violent attacks against Muslim communities shortly after Ramadan.

Keywords: Salience; Muslims; Behavioral Political Economy; Right-Wing Extremism. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D74 D91 J15 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 83
Date: 2019-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-eur, nep-mig and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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http://dipartimenti.unicatt.it/economia-finanza-def080.pdf First version, 2019 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Minority Salience and Political Extremism (2021)
Working Paper: Minority Salience and Political Extremism (2016)
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