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Ideological spillovers across the Atlantic? Evidence from Trump’s presidential election

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  • Costa-Font, Joan
  • Ljunge, Martin

Abstract

Ideological spillovers refer to the modification of an individual's core beliefs after learning about other people's beliefs. We study one specific international ideological spillover, namely, the effect of the unexpected election of a United States (US) president (Donald Trump on the 9 th of November 2016), who openly questioned the so-called ‘core liberal consensus’, on European's core political beliefs. Using a regression discontinuity design (RDD) around the election event, we show that the Trump presidential election (TPE) gave rise to a ‘backlash effect’. That is, it steered core European beliefs in two specific domains, making Europeans more favourable to (i) globalisation and (ii) international mobility (about 10% change in the overall Likert scale range of the statement that immigrants contribute to a country). Contrasting with the hypotheses of ‘belief contagion’, we do not find evidence that TPE steered illiberal beliefs. Furthermore, TPE improved (deteriorated) the view Europeans had of their own country (the United States).

Suggested Citation

  • Costa-Font, Joan & Ljunge, Martin, 2023. "Ideological spillovers across the Atlantic? Evidence from Trump’s presidential election," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 114902, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:114902
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    political shocks; belief formation; information spillovers; backlash effect; pluralistic ignorance; Trump presidential election; political beliefs; the social formation of beliefs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • F50 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy - - - General
    • Z10 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - General
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

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