Bruter Lab

Research focus

ERC Advanced Grant · 2017

The Age of Hostility: Understanding the Nature, Dynamics, Determinants, and Consequences of Citizens' Electoral Hostility in 27 Democracies

‘I hate Brexiteers, they betrayed my future’. Those words of an 18 year old on Brexit Referendum Night represent a growing and worrying phenomenon: electoral hostility. Electoral disagreements have long been seen as results of social divisions, but recent research shows that they have become a basis of antagonism in their own right in the US. Two comparative pilots I ran also found electoral hostility widespread in recent French and British elections but rare in South Africa and Australia. In the UK Brexit referendum, 51% of citizens felt anger towards opposite voters and 46% disgust. I define electoral hostility as negative feelings (frustration, anger, contempt, disgust) held towards…

From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.