Media, Spillovers and Social Norms: The Electoral Impact of Anti-Far-Right Protests in the 2002 French Election
研究2002年法国总统选举期间反极右抗议对投票行为的影响，发现抗议减少了极右候选人勒庞的得票和弃票率，增加了希拉克的得票，并通过媒体传播产生溢出效应。
Abstract We study the electoral impact of protesting against the far right by investigating the demonstrations held during the 2002 French presidential elections against far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen. Instrumenting rally attendance with rainfall while factoring in that some municipalities never host protests, we find that larger protests reduced the number of votes for Le Pen and abstention, while increasing the number of votes for the incumbent president, Jacques Chirac. We find that the effect spread out beyond the municipalities that hosted protests and worked through media exposure. Using survey data, we show that protests reduced support for the policies advocated by Le Pen. Moreover, the positive effect on voting for Chirac resulted from right-wing voters switching from Le Pen to Chirac and left-wing voters not casting a blank ballot, implying that some voters voted expressively. Finally, we show that protests reduced the social desirability of voting for Le Pen.