On 15 May, Stuart Turnbull-Dugarte will visit the department and give a talk entitled, "Do strategically liberal frames increase support for anti-immigrant governments? No, but genuinely liberal policies do.” 

Stuart Turnbull-Dugarte is an Associate Professor of Quantitative Political Science at the University of Southampton. His research lies at the intersection of political sociology and comparative politics. Substantively, Stuart is interested in understanding the causes and consequences of far-right party success; how political identities shape electoral action; and the political behaviour of LGBTQ+ individuals and how the political preferences of this social strata diverge from those of cis-gender heterosexual peers. 

Find the abstract for the talk below.

Abstract

Across Western democracies, parties with exclusionary agendas have sought to broaden their electoral appeal by coupling anti-immigration positions with references to broadly supported liberal values. Can exclusionary coalitions broaden their support by deploying selective liberal rhetoric -- instrumentalizing gender equality or LGBT rights to justify restrictive immigration policies? We test this proposition with a pre-registered conjoint experiment fielded to 3,994 German respondents, in which participants evaluated hypothetical coalition agreements that varied immigration framing (generic, femonationalist, or homonationalist), policy commitments (pro- or anti-LGBT and gender equality), coalition partners (including or excluding the far-right AfD), and other attributes. Contrary to expectations, we find that selective liberal framing reduces coalition support. Policy substance on the other hand, that is genuine progressive gender, but not LGBT policies, can increase support for anti-immigration governments even in coalitions incorporating far-right parties. These findings demonstrate that the strategic strategies adopted by exclusionary parties may not provide the electoral dividends they anticipate. Voters, particularly women and LGBT voters targeted by these efforts, are capable of distinguishing between saying liberal things and doing liberal things, with consequential implications for coalition strategies.