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Friendship Networks and Political Opinions: A Natural Experiment among Future French Politicians

Author

Listed:
  • Yann Algan
  • Nicolò Dalvit
  • Quoc-Anh Do
  • Alexis Le Chapelain
  • Yves Zenou

Abstract

We study how social interaction and friendship shape students' political opinions in a natural experiment at Sciences Po, the cradle of top French politicians. Quasi-random assignments of students into the same short-term integration groups before their scholar curriculum reduce political opinion gap, and increase friendship formation. Using the pairwise indicator of same-group membership as instrumental variable for friendship, we find that friendship causes a reduction of differences in opinions by 40% of the standard deviation of opinion gap. The evidence is consistent with a homophily-enforced mechanism, by which friendship causes initially politically-similar students to join political associations together, which reinforces their political similarity, without exercising an effect on initially politically-dissimilar pairs. Friendship affects opinion gaps by reducing divergence, therefore polarization and extremism, without forcing individuals’ views to converge. Network characteristics also matter to the friendship effect.

Suggested Citation

  • Yann Algan & Nicolò Dalvit & Quoc-Anh Do & Alexis Le Chapelain & Yves Zenou, 2023. "Friendship Networks and Political Opinions: A Natural Experiment among Future French Politicians," CESifo Working Paper Series 10753, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10753
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    Cited by:

    1. Michael Bailey & Drew Johnston & Theresa Kuchler & Dominic Russel & Bogdan State & Johannes Stroebel, 2020. "Online Appendix & Additional Results for The Determinants of Social Connectedness in Europe," Papers 2007.12177, arXiv.org.
    2. Polipciuc, Maria & Cörvers, Frank & Montizaan, Raymond, 2023. "Peers’ race in adolescence and voting behavior," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    3. Zenou, Yves & Biavaschi, Costanza & Giulietti, Corrado, 2021. "Social Networks and (Political) Assimilation in the Age of Mass Migration," CEPR Discussion Papers 16182, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Zenou, Yves & Campbell, Arthur & Leister, Matthew, 2019. "Social Media and Polarization," CEPR Discussion Papers 13860, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Michael Bailey & Theresa Kuchler & Dominic Russel & Bogdan State & Johannes Stroebel, 2020. "The Determinants and Effects of Social Connectedness in Europe," CESifo Working Paper Series 8310, CESifo.
    6. Pierre Magontier & Albert Solé-Ollé & Elisabet Viladecans Marsal, 2021. "The Political Economy of Coastal Development," CESifo Working Paper Series 9059, CESifo.
    7. Bailey, Michael & Kuchler, Theresa & Russel, Dominic & State, Bogdan & Stroebel, Johannes, 2020. "Social Connectedness in Europe," SocArXiv 3wh67, Center for Open Science.
    8. Zenou, Yves & Bochet, Olivier & Faure, Mathieu & Long, Yan, 2020. "Perceived Competition in Networks," CEPR Discussion Papers 15582, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Bochet, Olivier & Faure, Mathieu & Long, Yan & Zenou, Yves, 2020. "Perceived Competition in Networks," CEPR Discussion Papers 15582, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Hakobyana, Zaruhi & Koulovatianos, Christos, 2019. "Populism and polarization in social media without fake news: The vicious circle of biases, beliefs and network homophily," CFS Working Paper Series 626, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    political opinion; social networks; friendship effect; polarization; homophily; extremism; natural experiment;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C93 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Field Experiments
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

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