17:45 - 20:00
Thursday-Panel
Chair/s:
Markus Kollberg
Discussant/s:
Denise Traber
Meeting Room L

Roman Hlatky
EU Influence, Identity Politics, and Ceiling Effects in Nationalist Voting: Evidence from Slovakia
Nationalist Voting: Evidence from Slovakia

Markus Kollberg
Being populist when you need it? On the strategic usage of populist rhetoric in parliamentary debates

Thomas Meyer, Katjana Gattermann
A truly European contest? Transnational media reporting on political parties’ electoral performances across EU member states

Jonathan Slapin, Michele Fenzl, R. Daniel Kelemen, Pit Rieger
Attitudes Regarding Cooperation with Extremist, Anti-democratic Parties in National and European Politics

Ronja Sczepanski
What is the fuss all about? Testing the impact of high-information environments on people's knowledge about the EU
What is the fuss all about? Testing the impact of high-information environments on people's knowledge about the EU
Ronja Sczepanski
ETH Zurich

After the rejection of proposals in referendums, scholars claim that the outcome produces a shock creating a high information environment. However, the impact of high-information environments on knowledge has not been tested so far. This paper aims to close this gap by addressing how the vote in the EU constitution referendum of the French and Dutch citizens is impacting the knowledge on the constitution and the EU in general. The referendum is an interesting case, as countries vote separately on the same issue- the constitution – but at different points in time. By relying on the literature on cue-taking in referenda, I argue that election outcomes, especially surprise outcomes can serve as a stimulus to gather information. Using Eurobarometer questions on the knowledge quiz on the European Constitution and the EU, I employ a local RDD design in time, testing if people before and after the referendum are substantively different concerning their knowledge on the constitution and the EU. The analysis shows a significant but small effect on knowledge gain with regard to the Constitution. The findings contribute to our understanding of how people are impacted by election outcomes and how people update their knowledge, especially on complex political bodies like the EU.