Actualidad

Abstract:

How does perceived threat to collective identity influence voting behavior? I tackle this question in the context of post-dictatorship Spain, focusing on the renaming of streets honoring Francoist figures. First, I show that street renamings can serve as a proxy for measuring political polarization. In this context, I find a clear divergence in attitudes towards Francoism between the political ideologies. More concretely, by using a Fuzzy RDD, I find that municipalities governed by left-wing mayors are three times more likely to rename Francoist streets compared to those governed by right-wing mayors. This finding confirms the idea that the left tends to oppose Francoist values more strongly. Second, by using a Difference-in-Differences approach, I show that renaming Francoist streets significantly increases the vote shares of extreme right parties. This effect is particularly strong when Francoist streets are highly salient. This finding indicates a backlash effect among right-leaning voters, who may perceive the renaming of streets as a threat to their collective identity. In contrast, I find no such effect when Francoist streets are less salient. These results point to the complex relationship between public symbols, historical memory, and political identity in societies.

Short CV:

Iker Arregui is a third year PhD student at Lund University, working on both Applied microeconomics and Behvioural/Experimental economics. My research focuses on topics related to culture, political economy and economic history. One of my current research projects in the experimental area studies the persistence of corporate culture in competitive moral markets. Another strand of my research is related to social identity and political behaviour.