Does politics drive cultural preferences? Voting behavior in the Eurovision Song Contest

Abstract In the context of growing polarization and culture war conflict, politics is often seen as invading cultural spaces such as sports and popular music. An example is the Eurovision Song Contest (ESC), where political attitudes toward participant countries are thought to influence outcomes. In this study, we administer an online survey in four European countries to examine voting behavior in the ESC. Unlike existing studies, our individual-level data allow us to distinguish political influences on ESC voting behavior from cultural attitudes and song quality. We show that most voting in the contest is idiosyncratic, not political. Political attitudes, cultural attitudes, and song quality all influence ESC voting behavior, but effects and explained variance are small. Moreover, political attitudes only influence voting for those countries—Ukraine and Israel—whose policies generate strong opinions. The results suggest that, even in polarized contexts, cultural preferences are still primarily about aesthetics rather than politics.