Local Decline and Populism
Boarded-up shops are more than an eyesore: we tracked 83,000 vacant high-street premises in England and Wales and matched them to election results. Places with more empty shopfronts voted more heavily for UKIP between 2009 and 2019, even among people not directly hurt by the decline. Visible decay in the everyday environment appears to feed populist support on its own.
Read the full abstract
Support for right-wing populist parties is characterised by considerable regional heterogeneity and especially concentrated in regions that have experienced economic decline. It remains unclear, however, whether the spatial externalities of local decline, including homelessness and crime, boost support for populist parties, even among those not directly affected by such decline. In this paper, we contribute to filling this gap in two ways. First, we gather novel data on a particularly visible form of local decline, high-street vacancies, that comprise 83,000 premises in England and Wales. Second, we investigate the influence of local decline on support for the right-wing populist UK Independence Party (UKIP) between 2009 and 2019. We find a significant positive association between high-street vacancy rates and UKIP support. These results enhance our understanding of how changes in the lived environment shape political preferences and behaviour, particularly in relation to right-wing populism.