Understanding the geography of discontent: perceptions of government’s biases against left-behind places
基于对英国、克罗地亚、法国、德国和西班牙五国的调查，研究发现多数公民认为政府偏袒富裕地区和首都，约半数认为政府歧视农村地区，这种感知与个人地理位置、对政府不信任、民粹态度和左翼倾向相关，但并非民粹政党支持者特有。
Governments need to make choices over distributing resources and managing socioeconomic change, which can have geographically uneven effects.This may give rise to perceptions of institutional bias against left-behind places, treating them like they 'don't matter', which has been widely linked to populism.Which voters develop this viewpoint remains unclear.This study explores citizens' perceptions of geographic bias across five European democracies (Britain, Croatia, France, Germany, and Spain), using original surveys and granular contextual data.Our results reveal that perceptions of geographic bias are widespread.Clear majorities see government as biased towards rich areas and capital cities, while around half of respondents perceive bias against rural areas.Perceptions of geographical bias reflect individuals' location, lack of trust in government, holding populist attitudes, and being more left-wing, but not being a supporter of a populist party.Our results suggest potential for mainstream left/liberal parties, not just populists, to exploit perceptions of bias.