Attempting to measure the intensity of opposing feelings in elections: A polarization approach to Catalonia’s independence case

Adolfo Maza and Maria Hierro

Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, 2022, vol. 39, issue 2, No 1, 323-344

Abstract: Abstract This paper addresses the Catalonian political process for independence. Based on the outcome of the 2017 Catalonian Regional Election, it firstly innovates by building an independence-feeling indicator for each municipality. Subsequently, we resort to the concept of polarization to assess the level of inherent conflict. Besides, we evaluate to what extent polarization can be explained by different variables. Then, in the second part of the paper, we redo the analysis but, to handle the potential aggregation problem that arises with geographically reference data (MAUP problem), we compute for each municipality two (antiindependence-feeling and proindependence-feeling) indicators rather than one. In doing so, we avoid merging votes that offset each other and, by applying the polarization index, we not only test for (inter-) polarization but also (intra-) polarization (within municipalities). The results show important differences. More specifically, although polarization across municipalities is relatively small, there is a high level of polarization within them. Moreover, while population density, Catalan proficiency and place of birth are instrumental when explaining polarization if a single indicator is computed, in the case of two indicators unemployment rate, age and wealth also emerge as remarkable variables, while among the three previous ones the importance of population density decreases.

Keywords: Conflict; Independence-feeling indicator; 2017 Catalonian Regional Election; Polarization; Explained polarization; Ecological fallacy; Modifiable Areal Unit Problem (MAUP) effect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s40888-022-00260-0 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:epolit:v:39:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s40888-022-00260-0

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/40888

DOI: 10.1007/s40888-022-00260-0

Access Statistics for this article

Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics is currently edited by Alberto Quadrio Curzio

More articles in Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics from Springer, Fondazione Edison
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().