Publications

2026

1. Forthcomming

   

   Economic Threat and Support for the AfD: Conditional Effects by Socio-Economic Characteristics (R&R)

   Johannes Lattmann and Moritz Raykowski

   2026

   Abs

   Economic insecurity is considered an important determinant to explain the populist rise in recent decades. In this article we highlight that economic threat is conditional to income, education and occupation because economic threat is likely to be less credible to citizens with high socio-economic status. We show that economic threat is a strong driver for populist right support, but only for citizens for which the threat is likely to be credible. We rely on 2021 GLES data (N = 8,850) from Germany. Our results suggest that economic threat particularly is associated with populist right support for low income individuals, manufacturer workers and less educated citizens. In turn, for high income individuals, high-skilled occupations and highly educated, economic threat has no significant association with populist right vote.

2. 

   National, partisan or ideological biases? How EU officials’ characteristics can influence infringement proceeding outcomes

   Jan Menzner and Johannes Lattmann

   Journal of European Public Policy, 2026

   Abs PDF

   Infringement proceedings is a legal tool for the European Union (EU) to enforce common laws on member states. This article engages with the question how the nationality and the partisanship of EU officials shape the outcomes of such proceedings. We argue that both, Director-Generals and Commissioners are likely to find themselves in a principle agent conflict, having two roles, the role of an EU official and the role of a partisan of their own state. We hypothesize that infringement proceedings are less likely to advance when they are handled by EU officials who share the nationality of the member state under investigation. We rely on a unique dataset on infringement proceedings (N = 19,352) from 2002-2020 to test this. We find evidence for a nationality bias in the proceedings, however, only for commissioner. Moreover, we find no support for a partisanship bias.

3. 

   The relationship between EU fiscal transfers and the European policy profile of political parties

   Johannes Lattmann and Marc Debus

   Party Politics, 2026

   Abs PDF

   This research note examines how fiscal transfers within the European Union shape the strategies of domestic political parties. We argue that a country’s net-contributor or net-receiving status conditions how parties articulate their positions on European integration. In net-receiving states, Euroskeptic parties strategically mute EU-related rhetoric to avoid undermining their broader policy stance. Moreover, the increase in pro-EU positions among parties in net-receiving states is driven mainly by support for further EU-level redistribution. We evaluate these claims using Chapel Hill Expert Survey data from 2002–2024 and a regression discontinuity design that uses continuous measures of net contributions to the EU budget. The empirical analysis aligns with our expectations. Euroskeptic parties mention the EU less in net-receiving contexts while beneficiary status solely shifts party positions toward pro-redistribution preferences at the EU level. These results illustrate how Euroskeptic parties cope with the potential positive impacts of the EU.

4. 

   How occupation shapes awareness and preferences for European funding

   Johannes Lattmann and David Schweizer

   European Union Politics, 2026

   Abs PDF

   The European Union’s (EU) Cohesion Policy is one of the main instruments to tackle the economic struggle of left-behind regions, however, only little is known about the awareness and the opinion of citizens towards this regional policy. This article examines how awareness of EU regional policies and spending preferences varies across occupations. We argue that differences in awareness across occupations are attributable to skill and responsibility differences and divergent work logics. Our analysis of a harmonized Eurobarometer dataset (N = 82,365) provides evidence for differences in EU funding awareness and spending preferences across occupational groups, which correspond to their own material interests. In addition, citizens indicate preferences for funding decisions to be made at the most local level.

2024

1. 

   The electoral effect of pork barrel politics: evidence from England

   Johannes Lattmann

   Public Choice, 2024

   Abs PDF

   This study examines the effect of the allocation of centralised funding on electoral support for the incumbent by utilising the introduction of the “Towns Fund” in England in 2019 as a natural experiment. For causal identification, I leverage a difference-in-difference design to examine the electoral effect of this fund. My findings suggest that providing funding to constituencies significantly increased the vote share of the Conservative Party in the General Election in 2019. However, in a subset of constituencies in which the Labour Party constitutes the incumbent, the findings can not be replicated for all specifications and robustness checks. Furthermore, I do not find consistent support that the effect is stronger in economically deprived constituencies. Similarly, the results suggest that the voting outcome depends on the total amount of funding being received, however, this finding does not reach statistical significance. These results complement the literature by providing empirical evidence for pork barrel as a functioning means for vote buying for the Conservative government in 2019 in England. Furthermore, this paper emphasises that partisanship should be considered as a mediating variable when analysing the political effect of providing place-based funding.

2. 

   Mode of candidacy, electoral prospects, and the ideological deviation of candidacy-seeking politicians from their party leadership

   Marc Debus, Johannes Lattmann, and Sarah Wagner

   Electoral Studies, 2024

   Abs PDF

   Politicians who seek their parties’ nomination as candidates for public office start communicating their ideological profile to the selectorate months before the party decides on who will run as candidates. However, some politicians tend to steer away from their party leadership, while others stick closer to the party line. We argue that not only the mode of candidacy but one’s expected chances of winning the election during the candidate selection period are defining factors in understanding why some candidates deviate further from their party leadership position than others. We use novel data on the degree of intra-party competition among the main German parties in all 299 electoral districts and on the ideological positions of candidates, measured using their Twitter statements in the run-up to the 2021 Bundestag election, to evaluate our expectations. In line with existing studies, we find that candidates who seek only their party’s nomination via lists deviate less from party leadership than candidates who seek nomination as a district candidate. In contrast to our expectations, candidates who seek their nomination in an electoral district do not deviate more ideologically from their party when they can expect to win the district seat on election day based on published polls during the candidate selection period.