MZES Public Lecture

Title: Public Service Decline and Support for the Populist Right

Abstract: The rise of the populist right is extensively studied, yet relatively little attention has been paid to how the delivery of core public services may drive voter support for such parties. In this talk, Professor Sara Hobolt argues that declining public service performance has the potential to create grievances that increase the appeal of populist right parties. She examines this empirically in the British context, focusing on the publicly-funded National Health Service (NHS). By combining administrative panel data on closures of local health care facilities with fine-grained geo-spatial panel data on voting intention and using a staggered difference-in-differences design, she demonstrates the corrosive effects of public service decline, revealing decreased patient satisfaction and increased support for populist right parties in areas directly affected by closures. These effects are particularly pronounced in local areas with rising immigration and registrations of migrants at local health practices. This reveals the role of public service decline in driving support for populist parties, especially in local areas undergoing rapid demographic change.

Everybody interested is cordially invited.

If you are unable to attend in person, you can participate online via this Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89518712058?pwd=xBkso8RP14hAxttPfm0m0Cb6FCaMVd.1

Further information: MZES – Mannheimer Zentrums für europäische Sozialforschung