Ivo Bantel

Abstract of the article "Communicating a common front: mainstream party rhetoric and affective polarisation towards the radical right" by Markus Kollberg and Ivo Bantel. Published online first in West European Politics.

Figure 1, displaying the means of elite-level negative rhetoric for target and origin parties (re-scaled to 0-10) and affective polarisation scores in the public.

Figure 4, displaying the means of skalometer outcome across treatment conditions.

Figure 5, displaying the means of feeling thermometer outcome across treatment conditions.

💥Online first:

"Communicating a common front: mainstream party rhetoric and affective polarisation towards the radical right"

by @markuskollberg.bsky.social & @ivobantel.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Very happy to see our new paper out in WEP.

We document that rhetorically countering the Radical Right requires mainstream parties to form a common front to be effective.

Full paper (open access): www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10....

Highlights in the thread below.

Bargaining with authoritarians is doomed to fail. Excellent piece by @dziblatt.bsky.social and must read.

Important finding for Social Democratic parties.

Danish Social Democrats – often used as an example why Social Democratic parties should adopt anti-immigrant positions for electoral success! – could have won policy support for a pro-immigrant platform if their messaging were framed in moral terms.

New paper by Markus Kollberg in @psrm.bsky.social.

Mainstream populism doesn't work (i.e. doesn't influence voter evaluations of parties)!

Might also be relevant for some current political actors actors.

Some thoughts and pointers on the upcoming German elections on Sunday. Nearly all polling institutes have released final polls in the last days that show a very similar picture. It is nearly certain that the CDU/CSU will come out on top and Friedrich Merz is going to be the next Chancellor. 1/

Trump’s second term puts democracy and climate in peril As Trump’s second term as US president looms, the world braces for a radical shift in democratic norms and climate action. But there is an urgent need for resistance, write climate expert Andreas Sieb...

🧵1/X
As #Trump takes office today, @ivobantel.bsky.social and I comment for the @the-independent.com how Trump has radicalised and is a threat to #climate action and #democracy - why it's in the interest of other governments to collaborate and call his bluffs.

www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump...

The reason for this effect?

RR electoral competition decreases both trust in politicians and satisfaction with democracy among non-RR supporters. For RR supporters, it has the opposite effect.

As a result, non-RR supporters are less likely to turnout to vote.

Link:
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Specifically: RR parties primarily pull existing voters, not mobilize non-voters. At the same time, RR parties demobilize voters who aren't sympathetic to their programme.

A two-panel figure illustrating the conditional effect of radical-right parties on voter turnout. The left panel, titled "Satisfaction w/ Democracy," shows two data points: 1. For non-radical-right party supporters, the effect is slightly negative (below zero) with a small error bar. 2. For radical-right party supporters, the effect is strongly positive (above zero) with a larger error bar, indicating greater variability. The right panel, titled "Trust in Politicians," also shows two data points: 1. For non-radical-right party supporters, the effect is negative (below zero) with a small error bar. 2. For radical-right party supporters, the effect is moderately positive (above zero) with a moderate error bar. Both panels share the y-axis labeled "Change_After_Radical-Right_Contestation," centered around zero. Error bars in both panels represent confidence intervals.

New study by @nickbichay.bsky.social

Radical-Right parties participating in elections disenchant and demobilize voters, endangering (not "correcting") democracy!

RR participation in elections is associated with lower(!) turnout.

But don't RR parties bring non-voters to the ballots? Not really.

An investment strategy to keep the European Green Deal on track In this Policy Brief, we assess the investment needed to achieve the 2030 climate goal and climate neutrality by 2050

Europe is at a juncture where political resistance to decarbonisation is mounting and where budgetary means to buy off consent are becoming scarce, at both EU and national levels. To get the Green Deal done, a new investment strategy is needed

www.bruegel.org/policy-brief...

A good explainer of the surprising first round of Romanian Presidential Elections (1st round) and, importantly, the implications.

Elon Musk Admits X is Throttling Links — Effectively Limiting People From Reading News Musk confirmed that posts containing links are deprioritized, renewing criticism that the platform is restricting access to external sources of information.

Yes, X demotes link posts; been that way for a while www.mediaite.com/news/elon-mu...

Huge pain for news orgs. Source told me NYT's X traffic plunged 50% in 1 month www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

X also delays sites Elon dislikes, as we first reported www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

The victory march of democracy has ended

What can we as researchers do?

In the Scandinavian countries, a particular tool is available: Democracy & Power Studies.

The Danish government appointed me as director of such a study. We started our work this year.

A 🧵 on what we do & how we do it

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Bluesky is emerging as the new platform for science - Mike Young Academy Scientific Twitter is about to find its true successor. And it is not X. This, our latest release, shows that the Bluesky network of scientists is growing — and growing.

A mapping of how Bluesky is becoming the new Scientific Twitter

mikeyoungacademy.dk/bluesky-is-e...

Protests against the far-right reduce far-right voting through media exposure (here: study in France). A similar effect was likely the reason why AfD polled lower during/after large German anti-AfD protests.

FDP plante Bruch der Ampel unter der Bezeichnung der Operation für die Befreiung der Normandie von Nazi-Deutschland! Verantwortungsloses Verhalten kann zusätzlich auch noch geschichtsvergessen und geschmacklos par excellence sein. #DDayGate

Das Gender Pay Gap beträgt in diesem Jahr unverändert 18%. Der Gender Pay-Gap ist auch im europäischen Vergleich sehr hoch und reflektiert Arbeitsmarktstrukturen, die Frauen systematisch benachteiligt. www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pr...

Further, it matters in practical terms: a debate about an AfD ban is unfolding. While the AfD is casting itself as having moderated, such reports are providing empirical evidence contradicting this portrayal, and (secretly) supporting such plans could strengthen the case for a party ban.

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Why does this matter?

First, it fits the wider context or authoritarian attacks on liberal democracy: the short-term goals follow the radical right playbook of weakening liberal democracy and casting itself as the salvation (see e.g. Levitsky, S./Ziblatt, D. 2018: How Democracies Die, Ch 4).

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The goal is accompanied by a short-term plan to prepare this: deliberately weakening democracy by casting doubt on election results, discrediting the constitutional court, suppressing other opinions and fighting public broadcasting services.

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While the clarity of formulation is surprising, the goal is not: making Germany ethnically homogeneous by depriving some citizens of their fundamental rights.

Or, in their words, the “remigration” of “not assimilated German citizens” through “high adaption pressure” and “custom-tailored laws.”

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As the article shows, the “decade-long project” aims to prepare for when “patriots take power in [Germany]”.

The project closely builds on the extreme right Identitarian Movement's ideology and aims to change the general political climate to realize the unifying long-term goal of the far-right.

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Geheimplan gegen Deutschland Hochrangige AfD-Politiker, Neonazis und finanzstarke Unternehmer planten die Vertreibung von Millionen von Menschen aus Deutschland.

High-ranking AfD politicians (including the personal assistant to Alice Weidel, one of the AfD's chairs) met with neo-Nazis and potential funders in November, as @correctiv.org uncovers.

They fund-raised for a big plan: expelling "not assimilated" German citizens and weakening democracy.

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🔍 Finally, a grand coalition of the EPP and the S&D, structuring the European Parliament for a long time, has been declining in recent years. We unpack this development and trace it across regions.

🗳️ The full report is available to POLITICO Pro Analysis subscribers.

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🤝 The scenario analysis predicts a sustained and clear majority for the longstanding “grand coalition plus” formed by EPP, S&D, and RE. The sometimes discussed alliance of EPP, ECR and RE would again fall short of a mathematical majority based on our seat estimate.

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📑 Our exclusive scenario analysis aggregates polling trends, assigns new unaffiliated parties to their closest parliamentary group and considers affiliation changes. It results in this seat estimate:
- EPP: 178,
- S&D: 145,
- ID: 96,
- ECR: 89,
- RE: 86,
- Greens: 43,
- Left: 33,
- NI: 50

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Here are our main take-aways.

🥇 The center-right EPP maintains a clear lead (178 seats), the center-left S&D remains behind (145 seats).

📈 In a noteworthy shift, the extreme right ID establishes itself in third place, ahead of radical right ECR and liberal RE, which are statistically tied.

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📊 New polling analysis by the POLITICO Research & Analysis Division for the 2024 European Parliament election

🗓 5 months ahead of the EP election Nisa Khan, Rodrigo Gutierrez & I crunched the data and present the latest polling trends.

#EuropeanPolitics #EU2024

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