Working Papers
Working Papers
Panic at the Courtroom: Can Legislative Action against Discrimination in Court Reduce Violence?
Job Market Paper, Draft available upon request
Abstract: Can legislative measures against discrimination in court reduce bias-motivated behavior? This study examines the impact of criminal code reforms that prohibit the LGBTQ+ “panic” defense, a legal strategy that attributes a defendant’s violent actions to a victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity, on the incidence of hate crimes. I argue that such reforms operate through two primary mechanisms: first, by increasing the material costs of engaging in bias-motivated violence through heightened legal sanctions, and second, by signaling institutional disaprovement of violence as a means of enforcing heteronormative and masculinity norms. To assess the causal effect of these reforms, I exploit the staggered adoption of LGBTQ+ “panic” defense bans across U.S. states and employ a difference-in-differences design. The findings indicate that states implementing these bans experience a significant reduction in anti-LGBTQ+ hate crimes. This study advances scholarship on minority rights, policy feedback, and the criminal justice system by demonstrating how legal reforms shape social norms and constrain bias-driven violence. The results also have direct implications for policymakers and advocates seeking to mitigate hate crimes through judicial and legislative interventions.
The Electoral Effects of State-Sponsored Homophobia
– with Konstantin Bogatyrev, Tarik Abou-Chadi, Lukas Stoetzer, and Heike Klüver –
R&R at The Journal of Politics
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Abstract: Do strategies of state-sponsored homophobia translate into electoral gains? While a growing body of literature documents the increasing politicization of LGBTQ- and gender-related issues by illiberal elites, little is known about the electoral effects of these strategies. We address this important question by studying whether anti-LGBTQ mobilization pays off electorally for the initiating party. Empirically, we study the adoption of anti-LGBTQ resolutions in many Polish municipalities prior to the 2019 parliamentary election. Using a synthetic difference-in-differences design, we find that the adoption of anti-LGBTQ resolutions increased support for the governing Law and Justice (PiS) party while decreasing opposition parties’ ability to mobilize in affected municipalities. Overall, this study’s findings are relevant for understanding the electoral consequences of both elite-led mobilization against stigmatized and discriminated groups, as well as policies of subnational democratic backsliding.
Does Protest Affect Bystanders? Field Experimental Evidence
– with Daniel Bischof, Ferdinand Geissler, Johannes Giesecke, Felix Hartmann, Macartan Humphreys, Heike Klüver, Lukas Stoetzer, and Tim Wappenhans –
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Abstract: Despite decades of scholarship on protest effects, we know little about how bystanders, citizens who merely observe protests without participating, are affected by them. Understanding the impact of protest on bystanders is crucial as they constitute the silent majority whose latent support, normative beliefs, and concrete actions can make or break a movement’s broader societal impact. We address this gap with a novel field experiment in Berlin, Germany, randomly routing pedestrians past (treatment) or away from (control) three large-scale Fridays for Future (FFF) climate strikes. Additionally, we conducted a one-month follow-up to assess the persistence of effects. We find no detectable impact on climate attitudes, vote intentions, or norm perceptions but a substantial increase in immediate donations to climate causes. These results suggest that protest is more likely to influence bystanders through immediate behavioral cues than through changes in attitudes or norms. Our findings challenge the prevailing assumption in both scholarship and public discourse that protests reshape public opinion in a direct and unmediated way, calling for renewed theorizing of protest effects that centers on observers’ immediate behavioral activation rather than just opinion change mechanisms.
Electoral Responses to Local Cooperations with Radical-Right Parties
– with Phillip Heyna, Hanno Hilbig, Tim Wappenhans –
Abstract: Electoral gains by radical-right parties have sparked intense debate over whether mainstream parties should engage in cooperative arrangements with them. While existing research has concentrated on national-level cooperations in the form of government participation and programmatic accommodation, systematic and causal evidence on local-level cooperation remains sparse. Yet, the local political arena, we argue, may constitute a distinct strategic environment wherein cooperation is often driven by pragmatic governance imperatives rather than ideological affinity. This paper addresses this gap by focusing on German municipal legislatures, where mainstream parties have occasionally collaborated with the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). Using newly collected data on six different types of cooperative engagement between 2019 and 2024, we employ both a standard two-period difference-in-differences and a synthetic difference-in-differences approach to assess the electoral consequences of such cooperations. We find preliminary evidence that cooperations are associated with significant subsequent losses in electoral support for the AfD, with more pronounced penalties when the cooperation is highly visible. We theorize that these effects may stem from (i) a reduction in the AfD’s anti-establishment appeal, (ii) a shift in voter attention from ideologically polarizing issues to pragmatic concerns of local governance, and (iii) the enhancement of mainstream parties’ reputational signals of competence. To explore these mechanisms, we use a large language model (GPT-4.1) to analyze over 180,000 local news articles referencing the AfD, systematically extracting information on party portrayals, issue salience, and cooperation narratives.
The Politics of Crime Reporting: Electoral Cycles and the Distortion of Out-Group Crime
– with Ashrakat Elshehawy, Arun Frey, Tobias Roemer, Sascha Riaz –
Abstract: A large and growing literature documents the effects of exposure to news about crime, particularly out-group crime, on political attitudes and voting. However, media outlets generally rely on the police for critical information, including suspect characteristics. Against this background, we conduct the largest-scale analysis of police reporting behavior to date. To do this, we collected and labeled data from over one million police press releases issued by local police stations across Germany between 2014 and 2024. Our analysis reveals that the police systematically overreport out-group cues (such as non-German ethnicity or foreign nationality) relative to in-group cues, when compared with official crime statistics. Furthermore, we demonstrate that reporting is shaped by electoral competition: using a regression discontinuity in time design, we show that local police stations significantly increase out-group cue disclosure in the days immediately preceding regional elections (32% increase relative to the mean). These findings highlight the police’s role as gatekeepers of information, causally prior to the news media.
Selected Work in Progress
Norm Legacies: Activating Collective Memories for Social Change
– with Mirko Wegemann –