No Country for Asylum Seekers? How Short-Term Exposure to Refugees Influences Attitudes and Voting Behavior in Hungary.

How does exposure to refugees influence political behavior? We present evidence from Hungary, a country with widespread anti-immigration attitudes, that short term exposure during the 2015 refugee crisis predicts anti-refugee voting and sentiment. We code exposure to refugees at the settlement level using reports from state media, an independent online news site, and an online social media aggregator. Settlements through which refugees traveled showed significantly higher anti-refugee voting in a national referendum in 2016. The effect decreases sharply with distance. Using a difference-in-differences model, we find that the far-right opposition gained, while the governing right-wing party lost votes in these settlements in subsequent parliamentary elections. This suggests incumbents are punished by voters skeptical of immigration regardless of their policy position. Survey data supports this finding of a competition among right-wing parties, as individuals in exposed settlements are more fearful of immigrants and support restrictive policies only if they identify as right-wing.

Observing many researchers using the same data and hypothesis reveals a hidden universe of uncertainty.

This study explores how researchers' analytical choices affect the reliability of scientific findings. Most discussions of reliability problems in science focus on systematic biases. We broaden the lens to emphasize the idiosyncrasy of conscious and unconscious decisions that researchers make during data analysis. We coordinated 161 researchers in 73 research teams and observed their research decisions as they used the same data to independently test the same prominent social science hypothesis: that greater immigration reduces support for social policies among the public. In this typical case of social science research, research teams reported both widely diverging numerical findings and substantive conclusions despite identical start conditions. Researchers' expertise, prior beliefs, and expectations barely predict the wide variation in research outcomes. More than 95% of the total variance in numerical results remains unexplained even after qualitative coding of all identifiable decisions in each team's workflow. This reveals a universe of uncertainty that remains hidden when considering a single study in isolation. The idiosyncratic nature of how researchers' results and conclusions varied is a previously underappreciated explanation for why many scientific hypotheses remain contested. These results call for greater epistemic humility and clarity in reporting scientific findings.

Social Media and Policy Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic in Switzerland.

We study the role of social media in debates regarding two policy responses to COVID-19 in Switzerland: face-mask rules and contact-tracing apps. We use a dictionary classifier to categorize 612'177 tweets by parties, politicians, and the public as well as 441'458 articles published in 76 newspapers between February and August 2020. We distinguish between "problem" (COVID-19) and "solutions" (face masks and contact-tracing apps) and, using a vector autoregression approach, we analyze the relationship between their salience on social and traditional media, as well as among different groups on social media. We find that overall attention to COVID-19 was not driven by endogenous dynamics between the different actors. By contrast, the debate on face masks was led by the attentive public and by politicians, whereas parties and newspapers followed. The results illustrate how social media challenge the capacity of party and media elites to craft a consensus regarding the appropriateness of different measures as responses to a major crisis.

Nous étudions le rôle des réseaux sociaux dans les débats concernant deux réponses politiques au COVID­19 en Suisse: les règles relatives aux masques de protection et les applications de traçage des contacts. Nous catégorisons 612'177 tweets ainsi que 441'458 articles publiés dans 76 journaux entre février et août 2020 en distinguant le "problème" (COVID­19) des "solutions" (masques de protection et applications de traçage des contacts). Ensuite, nous analysons la relation entre leur saillance sur les réseaux sociaux et dans les médias traditionnels, ainsi qu'entre différents groupes sur les réseaux sociaux. L'attention portée à COVID­19 n'a pas été caractérisée par une dynamique endogène entre les différents acteurs. En revanche, le débat sur les masques de protection a été mené par le public attentif et par les politiciens, tandis que les partis et les journaux ont suivi. Les résultats illustrent la façon dont les réseaux sociaux remettent en question la capacité des élites à élaborer un consensus sur les différentes mesures.