Tanmay Singh (p)

We examine the changes in policy measures implemented by populist governments after coming into power in different historical and geographical contexts. We employ the dataset developed by Funke et al. (2022), based on Cas Mudde’s minimalist definition of populism, and expand it to several additional policy variables. We find that populist governance is rather heterogeneous both in terms of instruments and outcomes and that it varies depending on historical context, geography, and ideology. We conclude that we should contemplate a more nuanced definition of populism for a better understanding of the phenomenon.

Vincent Stegmaier (p), Melanie Krause

Whether pro-renewable political parties win or lose at the ballot box when wind turbines are built near voters' homes is still not well understood, particularly with regard to voter motivation and channels of influence. We contribute by using new fine-grained data on the location of wind turbines in Germany to determine the visual exposure of residential areas to wind turbines. This allows us to estimate the change in the vote share for the German Green Party after voters see a wind turbine from their neighborhood for the first time. In most election periods, we find no significant effect of visible wind turbines on the Green Party vote share, suggesting that voters did not change their support for pro-renewable policies. Yet, for municipalities first visually exposed in the 2017 and 2021 election period, we find a negative effect. In these municipalities, a growing number of citizens' initiatives have emerged prior to construction, indicating that wind energy expansion is expanding to less supportive areas where strong opposition has formed. With the exception of two legislative periods from 1998 to 2005, the party had little influence on fundamental expansion strategies and hardly any on local site decisions, implying a shift in the general attitude towards the expansion of renewable energies, rather than a punishment effect. The negative effect of visual exposure decreases with increasing proximity, but does not increase with the number of visible turbines.

Yue Dai (p)

This paper aims to assess how people’s view of material equality is affected by the mass movement promoting egalitarian and classless ideology in the context of the Chinese cultural revolution. Relying on the regional data from the China Political Events Dataset, 1966-1971 and 2010 Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS), I use a difference-in-difference design to identify how people’s susceptibility to material equality increases after the Cultural Revolution. I further examined how people’s demand for a better redistribution system is affected.
The cultural revolution as a movement in Chinese history was initiated as a movement to raise people’s sense of egalitarianism mindset and eradicate class differences. Despite all the terrors and disasters, it has brought to the Chinese people and society, the results show that the generation which live in more intensive regions of cultural revolution reports that they are more susceptible to material equality in terms of owning branded commodities, while they do not necessarily increase their demand for a better distribution system. In regions with a higher density of party members or major ethnic groups, the effect is ameliorated, potentially because the intensity of the Cultural Revolution in such regions was less affected by civil conflicts than political movement.
This finding suggests when assessing people’s view and respond to inequality, it is crucial to take into account of individuals most pertinent needs and their local socioeconomic environment settings, as the consequence of inequality is all-rounding while people 's ability to make economic decisions is limited by their environment and backgrounds.