Peer-Reviewed Articles
In the wake of Brexit, how has the framing of the EU and independence evolved among regionalist parties in the devolved regions of the UK? The effects of a multilevel structure such as the EU on regionalist parties has been examined, yet European disintegration is novel and thus yet to be fully explored. Has the framing of the EU by these parties shifted, and if so, how? In this article, I analyze 19 regionalist party manifestos between 2011 and 2022 through the lens of rational choice and discursive institutionalism to examine the effects of Brexit on the framing of the EU. At a rhetorical level, these parties have engaged in the subsuming of the EU, rhetorically tying their independence or enhanced autonomy to Brexit. Sinn Féin, Scottish Nationalist Party, and Plaid Cymru have used the critical juncture of Brexit to incorporate the EU into their regionalist rhetoric. By examining the effects of European disintegration on regionalist political parties, we can better understand the role that current events play in the fluidity of party positions as presented in manifestos. The data for this project can be found here.
Current Projects
Institutions, Choice, and Elite Preferences: The Role of Ethnic Kin Guarantors in Ethnically Divided Regions
When do states choose to implement consociational agreements in ethnically diverse regions, and when do they instead decide on a path of institutional continuity? In an exploratory comparative historical analysis of the regions of Brussels-Capital Region, Basque Country, and Northern Ireland, I ultimately conclude that preferences for consociational agreements are heavily shaped by the presence of regions or states that represent ethnic kin for the constituent regional groups. Northern Ireland and Brussels both have consociational agreements heavily shaped by the preferences of their ethnic kin-actors, whereas Basque Country has no such ethnic kin-actor to represent it, and thus has had no major external pressure to implement a consociational agreement. These ethnic kin-actors can help the regions to overcome institutional path dependence, assisting them onto a new institutional path.
Institutions, Inequality, and Ethnic Party Rhetoric: A Cross-National Examination of Within-Group Inequality and Institutional Design
How do within-group economic inequality and institutional design impact the rhetoric of ethnic political parties? When do ethnic political parties choose to focus on the rhetoric of class, and when do these groups choose to focus on the rhetoric of ethnic exclusion? Though the roles of within-group inequality and institutions have been explored in relation to ethnic party rhetoric in isolation, they have yet to be examined in tandem. Utilizing a dataset encompassing eighty-one political parties in twenty-nine European states from 1996 through 2019, this paper seeks to address this space in the literature by combining data on within-group inequality, party manifesto positions collected from the Manifesto Project, and institutional features. By understanding how within-group economic inequality interacts with institutional design, we can more holistically understand the factors that shape ethnic party rhetoric.