Michael A. Hansen

University of Turku | UTU · Department of Philosophy, Contemporary History, & Political Science

This study explores support for the populist far-right Finns Party in the 2023 Finnish parliamentary election. In the 2023 election, the Finns Party obtained their largest historical vote share, which led to the party's inclusion in the current coalition government. Utilizing an original, nationally representative survey, we find that Finns Party s...

Although the United States leads the world in its imprisonment rate, an investigation of American public attitudes toward the safety and well-being of prisoners has not kept pace. In a survey distributed via Mechanical Turk (MTurk) (n = 979), the authors explore how respondents’ political ideology influences their views on seven specific aspects of...

In political science, teaching quantitative methods can pose challenges due to students’ apprehensions and perceptions of the content, the complexity of the material, and the significant time commitment required from instructors. I advocate for adopting collaborative final projects in quantitative methods courses to mitigate these challenges. A com...

Several studies have examined whether attitudinal factors make people more willing to accept political elites violating basic democratic norms. However, the role of more basic socio-demographic characteristics, such as gender, remains underexplored. This may be a mistake, as studies suggest that these influence the evaluation of democratic transgre...

Are certain citizens more likely to feel entitled to evaluate the quality of democratic institutions in their country? Previous studies show that women are more likely than men to answer "don't know" when asked to express their views about the state of democracy. This article analyzes how political knowledge and internal efficacy contribute to such...

Several studies have examined whether attitudinal factors make people morewilling to acceptpolitical elites violating basic democratic norms. However, the role of more basic sociodemographiccharacteristics such as gender remains underexplored. This may be a mistake since studies suggeststhat these influence the evaluation of democratic transgressio...

Introduction This article explores how individual-level attitudes towards the exchange of sexual services for payment differ between the Nordic countries. The sparse existing research points to gender and general attitudes towards sexual behavior as powerful predictors of attitudes towards the exchange of sex for payment. However, there are no prev...

In this chapter, we investigate several exogenous variables (chief among these, the effects of dealignment) as well as the most important endogenous factor for the AfD’s electoral success—its strategy of “issue entrepreneurship.” Applying the concept of issue entrepreneurship discussed very briefly in Chapters 1 and 2 to the AfD, we argue that the...

As the AfD has sought to solidify its position and appeal to a wider range of voters, the use of election campaign posters has emerged as a crucial strategy for conveying party professionalization. In this chapter, we attempt to demonstrate that while the AfD’s political ideology has lurched rightward with each subsequent election, and while the pa...

We conclude our book by discussing developments since the 2021 federal election—the AfD’s national poll numbers since 2021, its election results at the state and local level, and the party’s recent party gathering in preparation for European Parliament elections in May of 2024. Overall, these trends highlight the continued electoral strength of the...

The Federal Republic of Germany is no stranger to far-right parties, but none has enjoyed lasting electoral success. The AfD has already broken the pattern of its predecessors. In this chapter, we explore the history of far-right parties in Germany to contextualize the AfD’s unprecedented success. Our argument here is that the ultimate failure of t...

The AfD’s shift to a more strident anti-immigrant, extremist, and populist politics was unmistakable in the run up to the federal election of 2017. So how did the party fare with voters after this transformation? What were the issues driving the AfD vote in the 2017 federal election? Who voted for the party and why? It is those questions we explore...

Founded just seven months before the 2013 German federal election, the AfD’s result of 4.7% in September of that year represented both a glass half-full and a glass half-empty. While it neither cleared the 5% hurdle of the 2nd (PR) vote nor won a single constituency outright (either one necessary for representation in the Bundestag)—thus failing in...

It has long been argued in the political science literature that a successful party strategy in a highly competitive environment involves, in part, placing the party on the ideological spectrum at a position where a substantial number of voters are located but competitor parties are noticeably absent. This issue positioning helps parties distinguis...

In this chapter, we complete our empirical study of voters for the AfD over its current election-cycle lifetime by examining who voted for the AfD in the 2021 federal election and why. To answer these basic questions, we once again utilize the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES). We confirm some of our previous findings on AfD support discuss...

This book traces the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) from its inception in 2013 to its re-election to the Bundestag in 2021, emphasising the party's nature as a "populist issue entrepreneur" and covering the three major crises that have shaken European party politics - the Eurozone crisis, the so-called refugee crisis and the CO...

The narrative that Finns Party support is substantial among young people is misleading. Age plays only a limited role in determining support for the party. The real puzzle is the substantial age gap in support for the Social Democrats.

There have been calls to ban the Alternative for Germany (AfD) from participating in German elections following revelations about an alleged plan involving members of the party to implement mass deportations. Michael A. Hansen examines whether the party could really be banned and what the consequences of such a ruling might be for German politics.

The Alternative for Germany (AfD) had a mixed record of success in the 2021 federal election. Although it shed just under a fifth of its voters compared to 2017, the party maintained its support or even gained strength in East Germany, especially in southeast Germany. Although the party’s influence over public policy is extremely limited given the...

Studies find that trust in the government is statistically related to support for gun control laws in the United States. Another finding in the literature is that Democratic partisans support gun restrictions at a statistically higher percentage than do Republicans—with the reverse relationship existing for loosening gun laws. While a recent study...

Few existing studies have delved into individual-level attitudes towards the exchange of sexual services for payment, leaving a significant gap in our understanding. Various studies have speculated about how certain demographic factors and attitudes may shape people's perceptions of causes and consequences relating to such exchanges, but none have...

Objectives: To investigate how race shapes public perceptions of a fatal officer- involved shooting of an armed male citizen depicted in a scenario without racial identifiers, intraracial, and interracial. Methods: We distributed an online survey whereby respondents indicated justification, measured by four questions about the fatal officer-involv...

Purpose-The purpose of this study is to explore the ideological gaps across a range of policing interactions with the public. Design/methodology/approach-In a survey distributed via Mechanical Turk (MTurk) (n 5 979), the authors explore the role that respondents' political ideology plays in the agreement of 13 aspects of policing services, their...

This study investigates people’s associations between the exchange of sexual services for payment and different sexual activities. Sex work entails a range of activities, from in person services to online performances. To date, no study has asked about the activities individuals associate with the exchange of sexual services for payment. The relati...

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore the ideological gaps on police use of force. Design/methodology/approach: In a national-level survey distributed via Mechanical Turk (MTurk) (n 5 979), the authors explore the role that respondents' political ideology plays in the approval of police use of force across a range of scenarios. Finding...

Divisive criminal justice issues are typically framed through gender and racial lenses, with little empirical work considering the increasing role of political partisanship. Using the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study ( N = 55,000), we estimate multivariate models of support for four policing and correctional reforms. The models initial...

This study explored the impact of question wording on attitudes toward trading sexual services. There are no previous research agendas investigating how views on the trade in sex are susceptible to question word choice. We utilized an original survey to assess how three different concepts used to represent the exchange of sexual services impact on...

In this article, we analyze emotional assimilation (host country identification) within Germany’s two largest immigrant communities—ethnic Germans from the former Soviet Union and those German citizens with an ethnic Turkish migration back- ground. Specifically, we investigate the strength of emotional assimilation among these two communities and t...

In the 2021 German federal election, the Left Party suffered its worst electoral defeat ever. Although it hemorrhaged voters to all the parties, its losses to the Social Democrats and Greens were particularly large. In this article, we examine the reasons behind Die Linke’s poor electoral performance. Although a number of factors may have played sm...

In the wake of the most recent protests in Belarus following the 2020 Presidential Election, it is useful to explore patterns of satisfaction with the political system, confidence in political institutions, and political participation at different points in time during President Lukashenko's rule. We utilize Wave 3 of the World Values Study (WVS) a...

This article analyses the vote for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the 2021 German Federal Election. Using the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES), we confirm some findings from previous studies, above all that attitudinal variables – including anti-immigrant ideology – are much stronger predictors of the AfD vote than socio-demographic...

Although the AfD is not, strictly speaking, an “eastern” party, its distinct electoral results in the two halves of Germany—underscored once again in the 2021 federal election—are something of a puzzle. In order to explain how and why the AfD performs better in eastern Germany than in western Germany, we analyze district-level results for the AfD v...

Research on democratic attitudes has recently turned to examine citizens’ views about the performance of specific democratic institutions in their country. Drawing on data from the European Social Survey (ESS6) and the Bright Line Watch Project (BLW) in the United States, this article argues that such evaluative questions carry high levels of cogni...

This article explores the gender gap in attitudes toward the use of military force in the United States. Given that the United States has been continuously engaged in war for the last 17 years, we revisit the topic and explore whether a gender gap in attitudes persists by utilizing Cooperative Congressional Election Study data for 2006-16. In addit...

Introduction This article explores explanations for attitudes towards the acceptability of transactional sex. The sparse research investigating attitudes towards transactional sex uncovers a link between gender equality, or feminism, and a lack of support for the trade in sex. However, there are no research agendas that attempt to explain variance...

The #MeToo movement has brought heightened attention to issues of sexual harassment and assault in the United States since it burst onto the scene in 2017. Because sexual harassment is an issue that often affects women differently than men, we find a gender gap in support for the #MeToo movement in the contemporary period. Yet, given the polarized...

Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore the availability of information on law enforcement websites in the state of Wisconsin. Design/methodology/approach The study conducted a content analysis of all 179 county and municipal local law enforcement agency websites within Wisconsin. The authors then implemented a comparative analysis that ex...

This article analyzes voters for Radical Left Parties (RLPs) in three countries-Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden. Belonging to the democratic socialist subtype of RLPs, parties in these countries find themselves in an intense "sibling rivalry" with social democratic and green parties for voters on the left side of the political spectrum. There...

At the last German federal election in 2017, the Alternative for Germany (AfD) attracted headlines for its hardline stance against immigration. Michael A. Hansen writes that while the party has published a similar manifesto ahead of the 2021 federal election, there has been a noticeable shift toward a more moderate campaigning style.

Using the 2012 European Social Survey (ESS), this article provides the first comparative analysis of how conceptions of democracy differ between men and women in 29 countries, and how this relates to their overall satisfaction with and support for democracy. Women tend to consider less important those aspects of democracy that privilege male resour...

This study explores the relationship between local government dissemination of COVID-19 information and partisanship. The unit of analysis is all official county government websites in the United States. In particular, we investigate if there is a correlation between the overall partisanship of a county and whether a county government's website 1)...

Since the election of President Trump and the dawning of the #MeToo movement, gender-salient issues have had a primary place in recent American politics. This was particularly evident in 2018 in the wake of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings amid accusations that he has sexually assaulted a classmate. Previous research su...

The most recent scholarship on the Alternative for Germany (AfD) indicates that citizens primarily cast a vote for the party based on anti-immigrant or xenophobic attitudes. Nevertheless, prominent figures from the AfD suggest that many Germany citizens with immigrant backgrounds vote for it-an argument that has been picked up by the media. In this...

Previous research demonstrates that long-standing gender gaps in political knowledge are often a function of measurement artifacts. This article examines two potential measurement issues – question content and format – to determine whether gender differences in knowledge are sensitive to decisions we make when choosing and constructing knowledge me...

The analysis builds on previous research exploring the impact of far-right support on citizenship policy. Using Bayesian analyses, this research evaluates the impact of far-right success on citizenship policy restrictiveness and citizenship policy outcomes per year across 29 European countries between 2003–2014. Results reveal that far-right succes...

Previous research has shown that in addition to party identification chancellor candidate evaluations play an important role in determining vote choice in German federal elections. In this article, we evaluate the impact that such evaluations had on vote choice in 2009, 2013, and 2017 using the German Longitudinal Election Study. In contrast to a p...

This article explores the role that gender differences played in vote choice for radical right parties in European countries from 2002-2014. In particular, the research agenda explores whether men and women differ in regards to the attitudinal variables that drive vote choice for a radical right party. Further, the empirical analysis tests whether...

Using the 2017 post-election German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES), this article examines the voters for the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in the 2017 German federal election. We show that AfD voters in 2017 were truly ‘flesh of the same flesh’ of the mainstream German political parties, with the AfD drawing its voters from across the political...

While scholars understand some of the reasons for the underrepresentation of women in elected office in the United States, we know almost nothing about what the public sees as the explanation for this reality. We also know relatively little about the degree to which people see women’s underrepresentation as a problem. Drawing on blame attribution t...

Objective The objective of this study was to test the individual and parliamentary constituency factors that impact the level of trust that British citizens have in the courts. Methods By using a Bayesian hierarchical model, this article is able to calculate the effect of variables that exist at both levels. Results At the individual level, the m...

Although the radical right in liberal democracies have received a wealth of attention in the literature, the mechanisms explaining individual radical right vote choice are unclear. This analysis provides the first comprehensive theoretical framework and empirical modeling of individual radical right vote choice. The choice to vote for a radical rig...

Why do some countries deviate from European Union law? More specifically, why do countries violate the Stability and Growth Pact, which is a cornerstone piece of legislation for the shared economy? Is it that violators simply have no other choice due to economic need? Are the violators intentional deviators that are simply able to violate the Stabi...

In this article, we systematically analyze the available data on SCOTUS clerk appointments to more thoroughly investigate the gender disparity in the hiring practices of its justices across the time period, 1941 to 2011, and compare this data, whenever possible, to that collected for the SCC from 1967 to 2007. In doing so, we are especially interes...