Lukas Rudolph

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Rudolph

First Name

Lukas

ORCID

0000-0001-8977-4480

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Publications1 - 10 of 36

Schweizer Umweltpanel. Vierte Erhebungswelle: Basisbefragung
Quoß, Franziska; Rudolph, Lukas; Gomm, Sarah; et al. (2021)
How does information affect vote choice in open-list PR systems? Evidence from a survey experiment mimicking real-world elections in Switzerland
Quoß, Franziska; Rudolph, Lukas; Däubler, Thomas (2024)
Electoral Studies
List proportional representation with candidate voting can facilitate policy representation in multiple dimensions. However, candidates with deviating positions may not benefit if cues such as shared socio-demographics drive candidate choice instead. Does this use of cues reflect a lack of policy-related information or a preference for descriptive representation? We study this question in a real-world context, using a survey-embedded experiment that emulates actual vote choice shortly after the 2019 Swiss elections. We vary the level of information on candidates’ policy positions in zero, one or two dimensions (left–right, environment). Our results show that spatial proximity voting increases with better information on the secondary (but not the first) dimension, indicating that information can improve the alignment of (environmental) policy views between voters and candidates. In turn, same-gender and same-age voting slightly decreases when more information is available. The preference for local candidates remains strong. Our results inform debates regarding citizens’ preferences for different types of representation and how electoral systems moderate their expression.
Could closing the knowledge gap help in reducing global environmental impacts of local consumption?
Presberger, David; Quoß, Franziska; Rudolph, Lukas; et al. (2022)
OSF Preprints
Vastly increased international trade over the past few decades has resulted in an ever larger geographical spread in the environmental impacts of local consumption. Particularly in the case of high-income countries, a large share of their total environmental footprint of local consumption now materializes in places far beyond the respective national border. On the presumption that democratic policy-makers should, and often do, act in line with prevailing public opinion we examine whether currently weak policies addressing consumption-based environmental impacts abroad may reflect a knowledge gap amongst citizens, and how closing this knowledge gap would affect policy preferences concerning the greening of international supply chains. We do so based on an experiment, embedded in a large representative survey (N=8’000) in Switzerland, a high-income country with a very large extraterritorial environmental footprint. The main finding is that there is a major knowledge gap amongst the mass public in this area, and that this gap can be closed. However, closing the knowledge gap does not lead to a significant change in policy preferences in favor of reducing the global environmental footprint of local consumption. This points to major policy challenges in trying to mitigate problems of environmental impact shifting in the global economy.
Schweizer Umweltpanel. Dritte Erhebungswelle: Lebensmittelabfälle
Rudolph, Lukas; Fesenfeld, Lukas Paul; Quoß, Franziska; et al. (2020)
Environmental change and migration aspirations: Evidence from Bangladesh
Rudolph, Lukas; Koubi, Vally; Freihardt, Jan (2025)
Global Environmental Change
The argument that environmental stress is an important driver of migration has gained renewed attention amidst increasing climatic changes. This study examines whether and how two distinct environmental stressors influence migration aspirations among affected populations. Our analysis relies on two waves of original survey data of 1,594 households residing in 36 villages along the 250 km of the Jamuna River in Bangladesh, an area heavily impacted by floods and riverbank erosion. The results reveal that riverbank erosion – a long-term environmental event causing permanent destruction – increases aspirations for internal, permanent migration by about 15 percentage points, 4 to 6 months after the occurrence. In contrast, sudden and short-term events, like floods, which have a more temporary impact, do not affect migration aspirations. These results suggest that the type of environmental event shapes adaptation strategies, with migration emerging as a viable response to more severe and lasting events such as erosion. This entails important policy implications regarding the effects of climate change on future patterns of internal migration and highlights that most affected individuals prefer to adapt to environmental stress in situ or within close proximity.
Citizen preferences on private-public co-regulation in environmental governance: Evidence from Switzerland
Kolcava, Dennis; Rudolph, Lukas; Bernauer, Thomas (2021)
Global Environmental Change
Environmental policy is touching on ever more aspects of corporate and individual behavior, and there is much debate over what combinations of top-down (government-imposed) and bottom-up (voluntary private sector) measures to use. In democratic societies, citizens’ preferences over such combinations are crucial because they shape the political mandates based on which policymakers act. We argue that policy designs that involve private-public co-regulation receive more citizen support if they are based on inclusive decision-making, use strong transparency and monitoring mechanisms, and include a trigger for government intervention in case of ineffectiveness. Survey experiments in Switzerland (N = 1941) provide strong support for these arguments. Our research demonstrates that differences in co-regulation design have major implications for public support. Another key finding is that there seems to be a contradiction between inclusiveness and democratic accountability for policy outcomes. The findings are surprisingly consistent across two very different green economy issues we focus on empirically (decarbonization of finance, pesticides). This suggests that our study design offers a useful template for research that explores public opinion on green economy policy designs for other issues and in other countries.
Swiss Minerals Observatory - Synthesis report and policy implications
Brugger, Fritz; Bernauer, Thomas; Burlando, Paolo; et al. (2022)
Do distributional consequences affect public goods provision? Insights from 5G antenna placement in Switzerland
Rudolph, Lukas; Quoß, Franziska; Bernauer, Thomas (2022)
SocArXiv
Distributional implications of public goods provision may affect the ability of societies to provide these. Particularly, localized provision costs may result in opposition in the vicinity of provision sites, reducing provision levels and/or efficiency (“not-in-my-backyard” (NIMBY) challenge). We examine mass public support on policy provision in this regard, focusing on 5G, the latest technology standard for mobile data transmission, and the placement of 5G antennas in particular. Based on survey experiments with a geo-coded representative sample of over 5’000 residents of Switzerland, revealing real-world antenna locations to respondents, we find that NIMBYism plays a role for individual attitudes/policy preference formation towards 5G expansion. NIMBYism also affects the (stated) propensity to engage in political action against 5G antennas, irrespective of monetary costs. Finally, NIMBYism can be mitigated when citizens decide under a veil of ignorance on a feasible distribution of siting locations, leaving actual site choice to be a technical process.
Die Münchner Ergebnisse im Bundes- und Landesvergleich: Ein Ude-Effekt in München?
Rudolph, Lukas (2017)
Exit Polls und Hybrid-Modelle: Ein neuer Ansatz zur Modellierung von Wählerwanderungen
Deontological and Consequentialist Preferences Towards Arms Exports
Rudolph, Lukas; Freitag, Markus; Thurner, Paul W. (2022)
SocArXiv
Despite fierce politicization in arms-exporting democracies, we lack systematic research on mass public preferences on arms transfers. We propose that citizens either apply a deontologist (rejecting arms exports categorically) or consequentialist (trading-off economic, strategic and normative aspects) calculus of preference formation. Conducting population-representative survey experiments (N=6,617) in Germany and France (two global top-5 major arms exporters), we find that 10-15% of respondents follow deontologist considerations, a preference structure likely relevant for all foreign policies involving the use of force. Still, a vast majority shows differentiated preferences, giving largest weight to normative considerations, with assessments affected by moderating features (e.g., scenarios of just war). Expressions of deontologist preferences and a large consequentialist weight for normative factors are more pronounced in Germany compared to France, indicating a link between population preferences and elite-level strategic cultures and institutions. Last, respondents' preferences match opinion-polls on post-Russian invasion Ukraine-armament, indicating high external validity of our experiments.

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Lukas Rudolph

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