
Markus FreitagUniversity of Bern | UniBe · Institute of Political Science
Markus Freitag
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Publications (173)
While recent research has shown that supporters and opponents of COVID-19 vaccination have polarizing political attitudes and beliefs, we lack a thorough understanding of how these two groups think about each other. To investigate the feelings and stereotypes between supporters and opponents of COVID-19 vaccination, this study draws on cross-sectio...
The Oxford Handbook of Swiss Politics provides a comprehensive analysis of the many different facets of the Swiss political system and of the major developments in modern Swiss politics. Its breadth offers analyses relevant not only to political science but also to international relations, European studies, history, sociology, law, and economics. T...
The beneficial role of voluntary work for social integration makes it an important aspect of social cohesion. Thus, there is broad interest in understanding the individual and contextual foundations of volunteering. With regard to the latter, a particular focus is on the role of policies and institutions of the welfare state. They might set incenti...
While conventional wisdom connects crises and external threats to increasing support for populism, several questions remain unanswered. Following insights of affective intelligence theory (AIT), we posit that anger and fear elicited by pandemic threat relate differently to populist attitudes. While such relations have already been explored in the c...
There is growing concern about a political divide between urban and rural places. Against this background, we evaluate the geography of regime preferences regarding a key aspect of democratic support, e.g. attitudes towards democracy and its authoritarian alternatives. We would like to find out whether possible rural-urban differences are due to di...
As a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments even in consolidated democracies have adopted drastic measures, temporarily constraining individual freedoms and expanding executive political decision making. In light of this trade-off between public health measures and democratic norms, it becomes crucial to assess the consequences of the COVID...
While analysis of the impact of threatening events has moved from bit player to center stage in political science in recent decades, the phenomenon of pandemic threat is widely neglected in terms of a systematic research agenda. Tying together insights from the behavioral immune system hypothesis and standard political science models of emotional p...
For many, direct democracy is said to increase political interest. To date, however, empirical findings regarding this relationship remain inconclusive. In this article, we claim that this inconclusiveness can be partly ascribed to the diverse effects that direct democracy has on individuals. In other words, direct democracy influences political in...
Behavioural immune system theory predicts that attitudes towards immigrants become more hostile during times of increased threat from pathogens, as pandemic threat triggers aversive emotional responses, which in turn foster outgroup hostility. We test this notion in the context of the current Covid-19 crisis. Combining both original individual-leve...
Drawing on the behavioral immune system hypothesis, we argue that the prevalence of the Covid‐19 pandemic threat in an individual's respective environment relates to exclusive, ethnic conceptions of nationhood. Referring to the affective intelligence theory, we maintain that specific negative emotions are prompted by the perception of being exposed...
In times of severe crises, citizens are frequently found to rally-‘round-the-flag – i.e. to increase trust in their government. Drawing on an original survey experiment with real-world information at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, we portray the saliency of rally-relevant issues of the crisis. Contrary to our expectation, this priming effec...
The Coronavirus pandemic undeniably represents a global health threat unprecedented in living memory leading to very distinct behavioral, cognitive, and psychological responses to the crisis. We argue that the different ways of responding to the pandemic are rooted in personal dispositions and provide evidence regarding the function and value of th...
In this paper, we claim that information about social cohesion during a crisis influences social trust. We maintain that it is key to distinguish between positive and negative information about social cohesion during the crisis as well as between different forms of social trust, namely particularized trust, identity-based trust, and trust in strang...
Research on the influence of digital technology on civic engagement debates whether Internet use leads to the decline of civic engagement or enables new social contacts and exchanges. We argue that whether Internet use has positive or negative effects on our civic engagement depends on how we use the Internet: Social Internet use and Internet use f...
Crises like the current coronavirus pandemic evoke negative emotions in the general public. To date, however, little research has been conducted on the influence of these mental states on trust in the government - the uncontested key player in times of crises. Drawing on the appraisal and affective intelligence theories of emotions, we argue that f...
The Corona crisis is an unprecedented challenge for societies. Lockdowns and physical distancing orders have generated economic, social and health-related consequences in many countries. In this regard, we evaluate how information about positive economic expectations during the crisis affects citizens’ attitudes. Using a real-world survey experimen...
Recognizing democratic backsliding and increasing support for authoritarianism, research on public preferences for democracy and its authoritarian alternatives has gained traction. Moving beyond the extant focus on economic determinants, our analysis examines the effect of national identity, demonstrating that it is a double-edged sword for regime...
Conventional wisdom argues that national identity and populism go hand in hand. We disentangle this relationship by examining how populist attitudes relate to two distinct conceptions of nationhood: civic and ethnic national identity. We argue that a civic conception of nationhood is negatively related to populism, while an ethnic conception of nat...
This article evaluates whether economic hardship affects social capital in Europe. Comparing 27 European countries, it evaluates the impact of personal experiences of economic hardship on engagement in voluntary associations as a cornerstone of civic and democratic life. Empirical analyses of the Eurobarometer data indicate that individual economic...
With the spread of the Internet, people are more connected than ever before. Against this background, we evaluate the link between Internet use and volunteering as a rather unexplored aspect of social life. Comparing 27 European societies and using data from the Eurobarometer, we show that Internet use is positively related to the probability of un...
Sexual violence is believed to be widespread during war. Yet empirical evidence concerning its prevalence is often limited. Victims, out of feelings of shame or fear, underreport this form of violence. We tackle this problem by administering a list experiment in a representative survey in Sri Lanka, which is only recently recovering from an ethnic...
Many established democracies are currently challenged by populist parties and movements. Switzerland is a particularly interesting case because it has an established right‐wing populist party that is part of the governmental coalition on a regular basis: the Swiss People's Party (SVP). We study the electoral success of the SVP from a psychological...
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/704328
This paper evaluates the psychological pathways between war exposure and the formation of political tolerance in Sri Lanka after the civil war between 1983 and 2009. To date, little is known in the political science literature about the interplay between war experiences, their psychological foot...
Civil wars entail many harmful consequences for the population beyond physical injuries and casualties. Although recent research has pointed out the importance of psychological distress, it must not be overlooked that not only immediate experiences from civil wars can cause such distress, but also the processes transforming social networks. In this...
While some scholars call for mechanisms to give citizens a greater voice in politics, others critically question the demand for more citizen participation. Rather, they find that the people do not want to be involved in politics and prefer independent experts to make political decisions. This perspective is captured by Hibbing and Theiss-Morse in t...
After online first publication of the article, it was noticed that the family name of author Panos Tsakloglou was erroneously misspelt as Tsakoglou.
The internet plays an important part in our daily lives. In this paper, we ask whether internet use is negatively related to civic life when focusing specifically on formal volunteering. Furthermore, we account for group-specific and activity-specific internet effects. Using a representative population sample of Switzerland, we show that internet u...
In this paper, we expand previous research on the psychological foundations of social behavior by evaluating the role of the Big Five personality traits with regard to the formation of individual social networks. More precisely, we ask if personality traits significantly relate to individuals’ social integration and position in their ego-network. W...
Existing datasets provided by statistical agencies (e.g. Eurostat) show that the economic and financial crisis that unfolded in 2008 significantly impacted the lives and livelihoods of young people across Europe. Taking these official statistics as a starting point, the collaborative research project “Cultural Pathways to Economic Self-Sufficiency...
The tension between openness and closedness is one of the most important cleavages in Swiss political debates. In the present article, we study the psychological foundations of attitudes regarding this issue. More precisely, we examine the link between personality and attitudes toward the degree of openness of Switzerland as a general stance toward...
This article contributes to the debate evolving around the political legacy of armed conflict. We evaluate the effect of war experiences during the 1998–1999 civil war in Kosovo on various modes of political participation. We find that war victims are on average more likely to participate in non-institutionalized forms of participation such as sign...
The steady flow of immigrants from all over the world challenges the social cohesion of states in a variety of ways. Against this backdrop, we extend previous research on attitudes toward immigrants by evaluating the formation of trust toward this group. Using a representative sample of the Swiss population, our results indicate that the violation...
In der öffentlichen Debatte zur Krise der Demokratie und den darin mitschwingenden Besorgnissen über allgegenwärtige Vertrauensdefizite gegenüber den politischen Akteuren und Institutionen wird der Ruf nach einem stärkeren Einbezug des Volkes in die Entscheidungsfindung zunehmend hörbarer. Neben die Befürworter direktdemokratischer Entscheidungsver...
This article focuses on the measurement of trust. First, we start with a brief conceptualization of trust, contrasting it with the concept of generalized trust. Second, we survey developments in trust measurement since the 1960s. Third, we summarize and try to systematize a number of measurement debates that have taken place. Fourth, we outline how...
Direct democracy plays a prominent role in the explanation of institutional trust. To date, however, empirical findings on the effects of direct democracy remain inconclusive. In this article, we argue that this inconclusiveness can be partly ascribed to the diverse effects direct democracy has on individuals. In other words, direct democracy influ...
While a new, growing subset of the literature argues that armed conflict does not necessarily erode social cohesion in the postwar era, we challenge this perspective and examine how civil war experiences shape social trust in Kosovo after the war from 1998 to 1999. Based on a nationwide survey conducted in 2010 and the disaggregated conflict event...
Untersuchungen subnational angesiedelter Gebietskörperschaften in Form einer vergleichenden Regionenforschung rücken zunehmend in den Mittelpunkt des analytischen politikwissenschaftlichen Interesses. Hierfür zeichnen sich neben dem allgemeinen Bedeutungsgewinn der Regionen auch die mit Blick auf das Forschungsdesign, die Messung und die Theoriebil...
Sozialkapital stellt ein bedeutendes Konzept innerhalb der Vergleichenden Politikwissenschaft dar. Basierend auf den Arbeiten von Bourdieu (1983), Coleman (1990) und Putnam (1993, 2000) beschreibt es den Wert sozialer Beziehungen. Der vorliegende Beitrag gibt einen Überblick über aktuelle konzeptionelle Debatten in diesem Forschungsfeld sowie über...
In this paper, we evaluate the impact of associational life on individual political trust in 57 Swiss municipalities. Our hierarchical regression models show that individual political trust is not only affected by individual associational membership but also by the exchange between associations and local political authorities in a community. In oth...
Rund ein Viertel der Personen über 15 Jahren engagiert sich in der Schweiz unentgeltlich in einer Organisation, zehn Prozent besetzen ein gewähltes Ehrenamt. Und fast 40 Prozent wirken als Freiwillige ausserhalb von Vereinen. Insgesamt leisten die Menschen in der Schweiz etwa 700 Millionen Stunden Freiwilligenarbeit pro Jahr. Dies entspricht etwa n...
Research on the foundations of social trust mainly concentrates on the evaluation of one's social environment. Empirical evidence focusing on the psychological origins of social trust is quite rare and the findings of these few studies remain inconclusive. Two innovations are proposed in order to systemize the knowledge about the foundations of soc...
Untersuchungen subnational angesiedelter Gebietskörperschaften in Form einer vergleichenden Regionenforschung rücken zunehmend in den Mittelpunkt des analytischen politikwissenschaftlichen Interesses. Hierfür zeichnen sich neben dem allgemeinen Bedeutungsgewinn der Regionen auch die mit Blick auf das Forschungsdesign, die Messung und die Theoriebil...
While a growing literature deals with the effect of personality traits on political attitudes and behaviour, only a few studies evaluate the interplay between personality and the political environment. In this paper we investigate the effect of personality on party attachment in context. The novel approach we advocate involves positioning personali...
On 9 February 2014, the Swiss people accepted the popular initiative "against mass immigration" launched by the national-conservative Swiss People's Party (SVP). This voting outcome has triggered wide-ranging debates about both the policy on immigrants as well as the future of Switzerland within the European context. Against this background, we eva...
While a growing literature deals with the effect of personality traits on political attitudes and behaviour, only a few studies evaluate the interplay between personality and the political environment. In this paper we investigate the effect of personality on party attachment in context. The novel approach we advocate involves positioning personali...
Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Zusammensetzung der Nichtwählerschaft bei den Schweizer Parlamentswahlen 2011. Der weit verbreiteten Auffassung, bei Nichtwählern handelte es sich um eine einheitliche, monolithische Gruppe, werden zunächst theoretisch aus dem Civic Voluntarism Model hergeleitete Kategorien gegenübergestellt. Ferner wird auf Grundlage...
In this paper we expand previous research on the psychological foundations of attitudes toward immigrants by evaluating the role of the Big Five personality traits with regard to the formation of political tolerance. Following the literature, we elaborate tolerance as a sequential concept of rejection and acceptance to uncover differentiating effec...
Tolerance is a basic democratic principle that helps civil societies cope with rising levels of diversity stemming from increased immigration and individualism. During the last decade the question of how tolerance may be fostered dominated debates in public and academic spheres. In this paper we take a closer look at how associational diversity rel...
This article combines the research strands of moral politics and political behavior by focusing on the effect of individual and contextual religiosity on individual vote decisions in popular initiatives and public referenda concerning morally charged issues. We rely on a total of 13 surveys with 1,000 respondents each conducted after every referend...
How does social integration take place away from disadvantaged areas with social problems? A German-Swiss study is examining how migrants and locals in small and medium-sized towns live together.
This paper evaluates whether volunteering is imbued with altruistic or strategic reciprocity. Although scholars have intensively studied the motivations and social norms to volunteer, to date there is no agreement why human beings perform activities in which time is freely given up in order to benefit another person, group or organization. We argue...
The policy of unemployment is probably one of the most controversial issues among economists, social scientists and politicians. In this article, we argue that European regions with higher levels of social capital will tend to have lower levels of unemployment. Using a macro-quantitative cross-sectional analysis of 134 European regions, we show tha...
Intolerance toward immigrants has recently reached noticeable highs in Switzerland. Referring to the conflict theory, the perception of a specific group as a threat tends to lead to intolerance toward that group. The expectation of a negative relationship between threat and tolerance is nevertheless not assumed to be universally valid for all membe...
Soziale Integration einmal anders: Wie gelingt die Eingliederung von Migranten fern der problembeladenen sozialen Brennpunkte? Eine deutsch-schweizerische Studie untersucht das Miteinander von Zuwanderern und Einheimischen in kleineren und mittleren Städten.
To date, neighbourhood studies on ethnic diversity and social trust have revealed inconclusive findings. In this paper, three innovations are proposed in order to systemise the knowledge about neighbourhood ethnic diversity and the development of social trust. First, it is proposed to use a valid trust measure that is sensitive to the local neighbo...
Our study evaluates the dimensionality and equivalence of social trust across cultural contexts, using new data from Switzerland
and the World Values Survey 2005–2008. Whereas some scholars assert that trust should be regarded as a coherent concept, others
claim that trust is better conceived of as a multidimensional concept. In contrast to the con...
Taking a comparative perspective, we investigate how political trust among Swiss citizens varies both with regard to the institutions of the different orders of government (i.e., federal, cantonal, local) as well as with respect to its development over time.
: The rate of turnover within parliaments remains an understudied area of research. The present paper contributes to filling this gap by presenting the first comparable macro-level data on legislative turnover in the 26 Swiss cantonal legislatures. In examining the strikingly different levels of turnover in sub-national Swiss parliaments between 19...
This paper presents the first investigation of whether direct democracy supplements or undermines the attendance of demonstrations as a form of protest behavior. A first approach assumes that direct democracy is associated with fewer protests, as they function as a valve that integrates voters’ opinions, preferences, and emotions into the political...
Dieser Beitrag behandelt drei Thesen: Wir zeigen, dass das besondere deutsche Transformations- und Einheitsmuster etablierten Konzepten zur Institutionenanalyse in Ostdeutschland im Vergleich zu den übrigen osteuropäischen Transformationsländern zu einer höheren Passfähigkeit verhilft. Bei Betrachtung des besonderen deutschen Musters wird deutlich,...
Ongoing changes in social structures, orientation, and value systems confront us with the growing necessity to address and understand transforming patterns of tolerance as well as specific aspects, such as social tolerance. Based on hierarchical analyses of the latest World Values Survey (2005–08) and national statistics for 28 countries, we assess...
Two views on the impact of church-state relations on civil society draw competing conclusions. According to the first view, state support of religion encourages faith-based social capital by providing vital resources for religious organizations. In contrast, the competing view holds that state support of religion crowds out religious civic engageme...
This article evaluates the relationship between welfare state institutions and informal voluntary activity. In particular, we wish to investigate the extent to which welfare state arrangements influence the individual's decision to volunteer informally. Focusing on informal volunteering – a vital, yet often neglected form of social capital – we rei...
How can the differing levels of voter participation in sub-national parliamentary elections be explained? To answer this question I start from the current literature on cross-national comparative research, and apply explanatory approaches from this literature to the analysis of electoral turnout in sub-national units. I focus on two competing influ...
This paper evaluates whether direct democracy supplements or undermines traditional representative democracy. While a first approach assumes that a culture of active direct democracy stimulates citizens’ political interest and ultimately bolsters participation in parliamentary elections, a competing hypothesis proposes a negative relationship betwe...
This article evaluates the influence of different models of democracy on individual volunteering in associations and organizations. More precisely, we investigate the extent to which the degree of liberal and participatory conceptions of democracy respectively shapes the conditions under which voluntary engagement thrives. We apply multilevel analy...
Since the publication of the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), scholarly interest in analysing the effectiveness and performance of education policy has risen again. The present article follows this path and presents the first empirical evaluation of the influence of national education policies on educational inequality...
Since the publication of the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), scholarly interest in analysing the effectiveness and performance of education policy has risen again. The present article follows this path and presents the first empirical evaluation of the influence of national education policies on educational inequality...