Liberal value clash: citizens' reactions to liberal institutions' right-wing policy shifts

Séminaire/webinaire de l'axe Partis, Élections et Représentation with Ronja Sczepanski (SciencesPo, CEE)

Presentation

What happens when an institution suddenly adopt right-wing policies? The European Union (EU) is widely perceived as a liberal institution which has promoted a more open and borderless society in Europe. However, in recent years, the EU has increasingly adopted more right-wing, closed-borders policies. Under what conditions do voters become aware of these value clashing policy shifts? And how do voters react to seemingly liberal institutions making conservative policy shifts? We examine these questions at the example of the EU's recent reform of the Common European Asylum System using a large-scale, pre-registered survey experiment using innovative, realistic video treatments. First, we show that factual information about right-wing policy adoption is not sufficient to make voters aware of liberal value clash. Political actors need to make value clash salient for voters to shift their perceptions of institutional values. Secondly, we find that when made salient, voters respond to policy shifts in line with their own ideological priors: conservative voters reward liberal institutions for right-wing policy shifts, while liberal voters punish liberal institutions for right-wing policy shifts. Concretely, right-wing shifts on asylum policy by the EU lead to lower support for European integration among pro-immigration voters, but lead to higher support for integration among anti-immigration voters. This study makes an important contribution to our understanding of political institutions by pointing out the trade-offs involved in liberal institutions accommodating right-wing policy agendas, and highlights the importance of political actors in calling out value clash. 
 

Bio

Ronja Sczepanski is an Assistant Professor at Sciences Po Paris, working on the intersection between comparative politics and European Union studies. Her main interest lies in the question of how citizens form opinions on the EU and the representation of their specific interets within the EU. Before joining Sciences Po, she worked at ETH Zurich where she also received her PhD.
 

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