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What explains the development of repressive employer coordination? Classic historical American business and labor literature focuses on institutions of labor repression and employer associations, but little systematic examination of such associations exists, particularly during the interwar period. Similarly, recent political science literature on the origins of industrial institutions underemphasizes the importance of repressive employer associations. I use new quantitative subnational evidence from the U.S. interwar period, with data from the open-shop movement in the United States at the local level after World War I. I test a variety of families of hypotheses regarding variation in repressive employer coordination, with specific data measuring the threat posed by organized labor. I find that such threats posed by unions are correlated to repressive employer associations. The results have implications for understanding local-level variation in the business repression of labor movements in the early twentieth century and contribute to our understanding of labor repressive institutions and the incentives of firms to collectively act.

What explains historical cross-national variation in the degree of employer coordination and related industrial institutions within advanced industrialized states? Explaining such variation is important because such outcomes are related to contemporary patterns in social policy and inequality. Recent literature emphasizes the historical importance of electoral systems for the development of such firm coordination. I present an alternative conceptualization of the outcome and a theory; existing theories cannot explain the important role of early coordinated institutions of repression among firms. I argue that the redistributive threat posed by workers explains the emergence of collective repression and that extreme threats induced collective collaboration with workers. Detailed historical evidence from the early twentieth century and the inter-war period in Germany is used to support the theory. Adapted from the source document.

AbstractResearch on territorial preferences in self‐determination disputes has traditionally focused on economic and identity‐related factors. However, the impact of social costs—encompassing overall societal comfort and conviviality—on specific preferences for territorial strategies remains understudied. This paper presents a novel perspective by investigating how social costs affect such policy preferences in Catalonia, a region in Spain where secession has become a politically salient and defining feature of the political debate in recent decades. Through embedded experiments conducted within regionally representative online surveys over two time periods, we examine the relationship between social costs and preferences for territorial strategies. Our theoretical framework and empirical findings underscore the importance of considering social costs as a determinant of policy preferences, warranting further cross‐national exploration—beyond territorial debates.

Do negative economic shocks change fiscal policy preferences? We examine this question via the large COVID-19 shock, as the virus and ensuing lockdowns caused one of the largest acute economic contractions in recent history. While previous evidence that recessions meaningfully change fiscal preferences is limited, we hypothesize that the health pandemic should have had distinct effects. We argue that this is due to the large breadth, uncertainty, and socio-tropic basis of the economic contraction, and that worse economic evaluations and reduced economic optimism should correspond with greater support for fiscal interventions to address the crisis. To test these hypotheses, we use new panel evidence from Spain, a hard-hit country, surveying individuals prior to the pandemic and the same individuals during the pandemic. We find that individuals became more economically pessimistic across many measures. However, there is little evidence that this translates into support for more expansive fiscal policies. Second, we find through a framing experiment that this could be because individuals believe that the government's fiscal policies would disproportionately benefit lower-income individuals. The findings indicate the theoretical importance of recessions for changing individual and socio-tropic economic expectations, but do not support the claim that large economic shocks can significantly change fiscal preferences.

Can secessionism be a basis for affective or social polarization? Despite much research on independence movements, their relationship to polarization, a key mechanism theorized as increasing the risk of violent conflict, remains less understood. We argue that the issue of secession can affectively polarize along both policy and ethnic group lines even in the case of nonviolent disputes, and posit a number of expectations regarding such secessionist-based polarization. We test our argument with the case of Catalonia, a substate territory that has experienced a deep secessionist crisis since 2017, using new data from a panel survey and embedded experiments fielded across two key time periods. We find that individuals' secessionist preferences condition high levels of affective polarization, in that pro- and anti-independence advocates have strong negative views of one another. In addition, there is spillover in terms of stereotypes of associated language groups (i.e. Catalan, Spanish). Importantly, we find a group of moderates in between the two policy poles that exhibit far less polarization. Finally, we document the persistence of these overall patterns. Our results contribute to understanding the underexplored polarization dynamics of secessionist movements, particularly in contexts where high intensity violence (e.g. terrorism, civil war) has not occurred.

Recent research on territorial preferences focuses on explaining who supports or opposes independence. However, this research overlooks the relevance of an "intermediate" category of citizens who may oppose the territorial status quo of a sub-state territory but not support independence. We use evidence from the critical case of Catalonia to illustrate the relevance of individuals with such preferences for policies and outcomes highly relevant to secessionist conflicts. We present four sets of findings using two-wave panel data from December 2017 (just prior to the December regional elections when Catalan independence was the most salient and contentious issue) and September 2018. First, we find that a sizable plurality within Catalonia supports greater autonomy short of independence; conventional sociodemographic variables explaining support for independence do not strongly account for this preference. Second, such pro-autonomy individuals have considerably more intermediate attitudes regarding the key "on the ground" actions that the Spanish and Catalan governments pursued during the crucial independence drive in 2017. They were more opposed than pro-independence individuals to the unilateral independence efforts, and more opposed than pro-status quo individuals to the Spanish government's actions to counter these efforts. Third, they expressed emotions around the secessionist conflict similar to pro-status quo individuals. Finally, using an embedded survey experiment, we find that pro-autonomy individuals are more trusting of both the central and regional governments regarding their abiding by an agreement to resolve the conflict, and are less easily "polarized" through priming. Overall, these findings indicate the importance of further analyzing individuals with intermediate territorial views in secessionist conflicts.

AbstractHas the UK referendum to leave the EU (Brexit) affected territorial preferences within the UK? We draw on comparative theories of such preferences to address this question, as Brexit can be seen as a shock to a political unit. We test hypotheses in two key regions, Scotland and Northern Ireland, with original surveys fielded at a unique time (September 2019). We randomize making salient different Brexit scenarios and measure support for Scottish independence and unification with Ireland within each region. We find in Scotland the prospect of leaving the EU increases support for independence. This effect is pronounced among those who support the UK remaining in the EU. In Northern Ireland, religious background correlates highly with territorial views, and we find little evidence of Brexit or border-scenario effects. Our results contribute to the literature on decentralization processes and the EU, and provide evidence of when negative shocks affect such preferences.

What explains individual preferences for austerity during the eurozone crisis? To what extent are such preferences affected by the specific content of austerity policies or EU-related factors? To address these questions, we present new data and embedded experiments that test theories
of austerity preferences, from a survey of a crisis-hit country, Spain. We find little support for austerity as conventionally measured, but such support can increase if specific reasons or benefits are made salient. The endorsement by the EU has no effect on austerity support, but support
for spending wanes when tax increases and concerns about fiscal commitments to the EU are made salient. The results help understand how unpopular policies such as austerity might be sometimes palatable to large segments of the general public.