Rural-Urban versus Center-Periphery: Identities, Polarization, and Preferences

• In Event: Social Cleavages, Realignment and Belief Systems

Abstract

How do geographic attachments shape polarization and policy preferences? Previous scholarship has identified a rural-urban divide and measured place-based resentment in the American context. Relatedly, research has also pointed at resentment toward capital cities as decisive for political preferences, which does not need to come from rural areas and is not aimed at all cities. We therefore bring back another geographic division into the debate: center-periphery. What is the difference between these two geographic divides? Leveraging original survey data from Norway, we construct latent measures of rural-urban and center-periphery identities based on the strength of an individual’s attachment to these places. We then explore the extent of polarization between these identities. Using survey experiments, we examine how this polarization affects perceptions of political decisions and preferences for more localized versus centralized public goods provisioning. Our work helps to better understand the subnational territorial cleavage in Western democracies.

Authors

• Marta Eidheim, University of Bergen

• Kiran Rose Auerbach, University of Zurich

• Anne Fimreite, University of Bergen