Core2017: B. Cartrite

This summer research project extends and expands an existing data-set of 541 regions in 24 European countries to assess the factors generating regionally-distinctive voting patterns. The current data-set codes for political divisiveness as well as cultural, demographic, economic, and geo-spatial variables for the two most recent national elections for which data are available. This summer, we will expand this data-set to include two additional rounds of elections for each region and all associated variables. In addition, building on insights from the most recent (June 2016) publication from this research, we will modify existing measures of relative economic development. Finally, we will add a number of political institutional variables to the data-set to capture the meditating effect of political institutions, beyond political pares, on contextual determinants of political distinctiveness.