[Séminaire conjoint AxPo-CEE] Stuck: Place, Mobility, and the Radical Right in the Knowledge Society

How does residential mobility – having control and choice over where you live – influence electoral choices? A growing literature has examined how spatial inequalities, residential choices, and housing markets shape political preferences, emphasizing how place, local attachments, and sorting and self-selection shape contemporary political cleavages and resentment towards the established status quo across rich democracies. To date, however, scholars have treated residential mobility as a given and thereby overlooked the fundamental role that residential mobility constraints play in structuring social identities, societal attitudes, and political choices. This study develops and tests a theory of how residential choices and constraints contribute to electoral realignment and growing support for radical right parties. To do so, it first brings to light how the flexible knowledge economy simultaneously places strong emphasis on individual mobility while powerfully constraining it. In societies where social safety nets have weakened, “flexible,” non-standard employment become increasingly commonplace, and spatial inequalities in opportunity, economic activity, and prosperity grown ever wider, citizens’ capacity to access opportunities and respond to changing circumstances -- and by extension their well-being and (in)security -- heavily depends on their residential mobility. Yet, for many, the skyrocketing of housing and living costs in high-opportunity agglomerations renders such places and the opportunities they provide increasingly out of reach.

Speaker 

Pauliina Patana, Georgetown University

Discussant

Caterina Froio, Sciences Po, CEE