Voting across borders? The electoral consequences of individual transnationalism

ABSTRACT

This article investigates the association between individual-level transnationalism, interactions and cultural skills cutting across European Union (EU) member states, and voting behaviour in the 2019 European elections. The process of EU integration has expanded significantly virtual and physical forms of cross-border mobility in the last decades. Previous works have shown that transnational social exchange furthers Europhile attitudes and dilutes fears for immigrants. Against this backdrop, it is argued that people with high levels of transnationalism have the incentive to vote for parties with pro-EU integration and pro-immigration platforms. Empirical analyses conducted on original public opinion data show that transnational traits significantly affected vote choices in the 2019 European elections. Individual transnationalism is relevant per se in increasing the probability of voting for green and radical-left parties, instead, its negative association with voting for radical right parties runs through EU and immigration attitudes.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See for instance: https://www.euractiv.com/section/elections/news/eu-countries-to-reject-spitzenkandidaten-and-pan-eu-election-lists/.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the research project titled ‘Reconciling Economic and Social Europe: The Role of Values, Ideas and Politics’ (REScEU), funded by an Advanced Grant of the European Research Council (Grant No. 340534, P.I. Maurizio Ferrera).