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Places and preferences: a longitudinal analysis of self-selection and contextual effects

Places and preferences: a longitudinal analysis of self-selection and contextual effects
Places and preferences: a longitudinal analysis of self-selection and contextual effects
Contextual theories of political behaviour assert that the contexts in which people live influence their political beliefs and vote choices. Most studies of political assimilation, however, rely on cross-sectional data and fail to distinguish contextual influence from self-selection of individuals into areas. This paper advances understanding of this longstanding controversy by tracking thousands of individuals over an 18-year period in England. We observe individual-level left-right position and party identification before and after residential moves across areas with different political orientations. We find evidence of both non-random selection into areas and assimilation of new entrants to the majority political orientation. However, these effects are contingent on the type of area an individual moves to and, moreover, contextual effects are weak and dominated by the larger effect of self-selection into areas.
0007-1234
Gallego, Aina
6bcaea0e-dab8-46b9-977e-882f1f8dd0d5
Buscha, Franz
425351f5-9eb4-40fe-b60a-77546e228851
Sturgis, Patrick
b9f6b40c-50d2-4117-805a-577b501d0b3c
Oberski, Daniel
b164bf55-aea8-4185-883e-412e53ba0e86
Gallego, Aina
6bcaea0e-dab8-46b9-977e-882f1f8dd0d5
Buscha, Franz
425351f5-9eb4-40fe-b60a-77546e228851
Sturgis, Patrick
b9f6b40c-50d2-4117-805a-577b501d0b3c
Oberski, Daniel
b164bf55-aea8-4185-883e-412e53ba0e86

Gallego, Aina, Buscha, Franz, Sturgis, Patrick and Oberski, Daniel (2016) Places and preferences: a longitudinal analysis of self-selection and contextual effects. British Journal of Political Science. (doi:10.1017/S0007123414000337).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Contextual theories of political behaviour assert that the contexts in which people live influence their political beliefs and vote choices. Most studies of political assimilation, however, rely on cross-sectional data and fail to distinguish contextual influence from self-selection of individuals into areas. This paper advances understanding of this longstanding controversy by tracking thousands of individuals over an 18-year period in England. We observe individual-level left-right position and party identification before and after residential moves across areas with different political orientations. We find evidence of both non-random selection into areas and assimilation of new entrants to the majority political orientation. However, these effects are contingent on the type of area an individual moves to and, moreover, contextual effects are weak and dominated by the larger effect of self-selection into areas.

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More information

e-pub ahead of print date: 21 October 2014
Published date: July 2016
Organisations: Social Statistics & Demography

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 367740
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/367740
ISSN: 0007-1234
PURE UUID: 6d4bcf72-6e9c-4add-b400-5c7872353b18
ORCID for Patrick Sturgis: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-1180-3493

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 09 Sep 2014 09:32
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 17:35

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Contributors

Author: Aina Gallego
Author: Franz Buscha
Author: Patrick Sturgis ORCID iD
Author: Daniel Oberski

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