TY - JOUR
T1 - Changing your political mind
T2 - The impact of a metaphor on citizens’ representations and preferences for federalism
AU - Reuchamps, Min
AU - Dodeigne, Jérémy
AU - Perrez, Julien
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique – FNRS: [Grant Number PDR-T.1036.15].
Funding Information:
We would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers and the Editor of Regional & Federal Studies, for their valuable comments on earlier versions of this article. Previous versions of this article have been presented at several occasions, notably the annual conference BELGIUM: THE STATE OF THE FEDERATION, and benefitted from the many comments of the participants. The usual disclaimers apply. Because their answers made this article possible, we are greatly indebted to the several hundred respondents to our surveys. We would also like to express our gratitude to Jehan Bottin, Maximilien Cogels, Maxime Lazard, Benoît Lecloux and Aleksi Otto Eerola for their research assistance as well as Pauline Heyvaert for her insightful comments on earlier drafts and François Randour for his help in getting the copyright for the image of the Tetris. The research reported in this article was supported by the Fonds spéciaux pour la recherche of the Université catholique de Louvain and of the Univer-sité de Liège, Belgium, and by the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique — FNRS under grant no. PDR-T.1036.15.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Copyright:
Copyright 2018 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2018/3/15
Y1 - 2018/3/15
N2 - Federalism is often presented through metaphors, but little is known about the impact of such metaphors. Two experiments were conducted in Belgium presenting federalism as Tetris – with control and treatment groups – in order to grasp the influence of this metaphor. The first experiment reveals that being exposed to text with the Tetris metaphor influences respondents’ representations of federalism towards a more institutional representation and towards more regional autonomy. The second experiment confirms the importance of the text, and more specifically of the metaphor, if political knowledge is taken into account. Respondents with a lower level of political knowledge are those who are influenced by the metaphor, whereas respondents with a higher level are not. Therefore, framing the future of Belgian federalism using the metaphor of Tetris does matter: it affects both individuals’ representations of the federalization process and, consequently, their preferences vis-à-vis the institutional future of the country.
AB - Federalism is often presented through metaphors, but little is known about the impact of such metaphors. Two experiments were conducted in Belgium presenting federalism as Tetris – with control and treatment groups – in order to grasp the influence of this metaphor. The first experiment reveals that being exposed to text with the Tetris metaphor influences respondents’ representations of federalism towards a more institutional representation and towards more regional autonomy. The second experiment confirms the importance of the text, and more specifically of the metaphor, if political knowledge is taken into account. Respondents with a lower level of political knowledge are those who are influenced by the metaphor, whereas respondents with a higher level are not. Therefore, framing the future of Belgian federalism using the metaphor of Tetris does matter: it affects both individuals’ representations of the federalization process and, consequently, their preferences vis-à-vis the institutional future of the country.
KW - Belgium
KW - Federalism
KW - citizens
KW - conceptual metaphors
KW - framing
KW - preferences
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85041821441&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/13597566.2018.1433663
DO - 10.1080/13597566.2018.1433663
M3 - Article
VL - 28
SP - 151
EP - 175
JO - Regional and Federal Studies
JF - Regional and Federal Studies
SN - 1359-7566
IS - 2
ER -