IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/15140.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Who Voted for Trump? Populism and Social Capital

Author

Listed:
  • Giuliano, Paola
  • Wacziarg, Romain

Abstract

We argue that low levels of social capital are conducive to the electoral success of populist movements. Using a variety of data sources for the 2016 US Presidential election at the county and individual levels, we show that social capital, measured either by the density of memberships in civic, religious and sports organizations or by generalized trust, is significantly negatively correlated with the vote share and favorability rating of Donald Trump around the time of the election.

Suggested Citation

  • Giuliano, Paola & Wacziarg, Romain, 2020. "Who Voted for Trump? Populism and Social Capital," CEPR Discussion Papers 15140, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15140
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP15140
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gonzalez, Felipe & Prem, Mounu & von Dessauer, Cristine, 2023. "Empowerment or Indoctrination? Women Centers Under Dictatorship," SocArXiv 64mf9, Center for Open Science.
    2. Bartscher, Alina Kristin & Seitz, Sebastian & Siegloch, Sebastian & Slotwinski, Michaela & Wehrhöfer, Nils, 2021. "Social capital and the spread of covid-19: Insights from european countries," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    3. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Neil Lee & Cornelius Lipp, 2021. "Golfing with Trump. Social capital, decline, inequality, and the rise of populism in the US," Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 14(3), pages 457-481.
    4. Tito Boeri & Prachi Mishra & Chris Papageorgiou & Antonio Spilimbergo, 2021. "Populism and Civil Society," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 88(352), pages 863-895, October.
    5. Maria Greve & Michael Fritsch & Michael Wyrwich, 2023. "Long‐term decline of regions and the rise of populism: The case of Germany," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 63(2), pages 409-445, March.
    6. Sergei Guriev & Elias Papaioannou, 2022. "The Political Economy of Populism," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(3), pages 753-832, September.
    7. Francesco Campo & Sara Giunti & Mariapia Mendola & Giulia Tura, 2023. "Political Backlash to Refugee Settlement: Cultural and Economic Drivers," Working Papers 522, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics.
    8. Julie L. Hotchkiss & Anil Rupasingha, 2021. "Individual social capital and migration," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 52(2), pages 808-837, June.
    9. González, Felipe & Prem, Mounu & von Dessauer, Cristine, 2024. "Empowerment or Indoctrination? Female Training Programs under Dictatorship," IZA Discussion Papers 17163, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Niklas Potrafke & Felix Roesel, 2022. "Online Versus Offline: Which Networks Spur Protests?," CESifo Working Paper Series 9969, CESifo.
    11. Gianmarco Daniele & Andrea F.M. Martinangeli & Francesco Passarelli & Willem Sas & Lisa Windsteiger, 2023. "Externalities and the Erosion of Trust," CESifo Working Paper Series 10474, CESifo.
    12. Gerling, Lena & Kellermann, Kim Leonie, 2022. "Contagious populists: The impact of election information shocks on populist party preferences in Germany," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    13. Silva, Rui, 2024. "Well-being foundations of populism in Europe," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).
    14. Daniele, Gianmarco & Martinangeli, Andrea F. M. & Passarelli, Francesco & Sas, Willem & Windsteiger, Lisa, 2023. "Regulation, Expectations, and the Erosion of Trust," VfS Annual Conference 2023 (Regensburg): Growth and the "sociale Frage" 277599, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    15. Mona Foertsch & Felix Roesel, 2023. "Sports Clubs and Populism: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from German Cities," CESifo Working Paper Series 10259, CESifo.
    16. Rustam Jamilov, 2022. "Social Capital and Monetary Policy," Discussion Papers 2219, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social capital; Voting behavior; Populism;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • Z1 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15140. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.