Unpacking the Role of Local Contexts: How Local Contextual Characteristics Influence Individuals' Political Attitudes in Western European Societies

Local contexts matter – this claim has been frequently made and analyzed in the social sciences. While the political science literature generally acknowledges the political relevance of local contexts, it is often less clear how, which, why, and for whom contextual characteristics matter. To enhance knowledge on the political consequences of local contexts, this dissertation examines how local structural and social contextual characteristics influence individuals' political support in Western European societies. Moreover, it investigates how local structural contextual characteristics might influence the effects of local social contextual characteristics. Overall, the four studies comprising this dissertation demonstrate the importance of local structural and social characteristics for different measures of political support. Specifically, Studies 1 and 2 demonstrate the contextual effects of economic structural characteristics. Study 1 indicates that higher levels of local social spending can mitigate the positive effect of economic hardship on political dissatisfaction, whereas Study 2 demonstrates that higher levels of rental prices are associated with lower levels of satisfaction with the local public administration. Studies 3 and 4 demonstrate the relevance of social contextual characteristics. In particular, the results of Study 3 suggest that higher levels of social openness are positively associated with pro-diversity attitudes. Similarly, Study 4 shows that higher levels of local social openness and positive intergroup contact are positively related to the political trust of immigrants and their descendants. Furthermore, Studies 3 and 4 reveal that the contextual effects of social characteristics are conditional on structural characteristics. In Study 3, it is shown that the effect of social openness is only present in densely populated local contexts, whereas in Study 4, the mitigating effects of social openness and positive intergroup contact are only present in local contexts with smaller increases in the share of immigrants. In summary, with these four studies, this dissertation makes four significant contributions to the scientific debates on the political consequences of local contexts. Firstly, the dissertation expands our understanding of the effects of local contexts by examining structural and social local characteristics, and their influence on measures of political support, which have received limited scientific attention thus far. Relatedly, it examines how different contextual characteristics interact. Secondly, the dissertation presents and utilizes innovative survey data, enabling a comprehensive analysis of neighborhood effects in German cities. Thirdly, it introduces the concept of social openness as an important feature of the social climate within a neighborhood and demonstrates its empirical relevance. Fourthly, the dissertation contributes to broader scientific debates on successful integration and social cohesion in increasingly diverse Western European societies, in particular by investigating the influence of contextual social openness and positive intergroup contact on pro-diversity attitudes and political trust. In practical terms, the dissertation's findings highlight the benefits of investing in local contexts as a beneficial approach for strengthening political support, socially cohesive societies, and democratic stability.