Alan Al Yussef
Doctoral researcher and pedagogical staff
About me:
Hello! my name is Alan Al Yussef. I am a PhD candidate in economics at the department of Applied Economics (APEC) at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). I research how economic circumstances shape collective behavior. The current focus of my research is on political preferences and voting behavior. For my research, besides tapping into the rich body of theory and methodologies economics offers, I often wander beyond the disciplinary boundaries in search of different perspectives and new insights. My oft-visited territories are sociology, political science and social psychology.
In addition to my research activities, I serve as a teaching assistant for Microeconomics and Public Choice courses, and I supervise several bachelor’s theses. I also oversee a research project for the course “Research Methods in Economics and Management.” In these roles, I like to assign tasks to students that prompt them to explore the social, political, and cultural aspects of economics. Their enthusiasm for these questions is truly energizing.
Research area:
Somewhere between political economy, microeconomics, political science, economic sociology
Publications:
» Journal articles:
Abstract. Polarization is increasingly seen as a phenomenon with far reaching and precarious consequences that extend beyond politics. Despite the extensive attention polarization has received, two crucial aspects of this phenomenon remain relatively understudied: electoral polarization and its socioeconomic drivers. We argue that socioeconomic anxieties—the fear of losing one’s social position due to economic insecurity—play an important role in driving electoral polarization. To measure the level of electoral polarization, we develop an intuitive metric based on the dyadic ideological distance between voters. Using elections data from federal elections in Belgium, we study the electoral outcomes of the 300 Flemish municipalities, where we find a significant link between risk of poverty, income, and unemployment, on the one hand, and the level of electoral polarization on the other. This provides empirical support to our overarching hypothesis that socioeconomic anxiety plays a centrifugal electoral impact, amplifying the appeal of polar parties, thereby increasing the level of electoral polarization.
Abstract. Political selection is crucial for the functioning of democracy. However, the practice—in education and sports contexts—of artificially dividing school-age children into different age groups leads to a considerable bias in this selection. The probability of becoming a (successful) politician depends on individuals’ relative age. Being born shortly after the cut-off date significantly increases the probability that an individual will be politically successful later in life. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find strong evidence of such relative age effect (RAE) among a large sample of Belgian federal parliamentarians over the period 1950–2019 (N = 4032), but not among municipal councillors (N = 7387), nor among municipal candidates (N = 36,740) in the 2018 election. The estimated overrepresentation of federal members of the parliament (MPs) born immediately after the cut-off date is up to 90% compared to politicians born just before the cut-off date. The overrepresentation is observed over the whole period and thus seems to be deeply rooted in the political system. We find the RAE to have a gendered dimension: The effect is driven by early-born male politicians’ overrepresentation. No significant RAE was found among female politicians.
» Book chapters:
Working papers:
Abstract. In this paper we examine the potential impact of voter turnout on electoral polarisation. Studying electoral results from the Dutch general elections in 2010, 2012 and 2017 on the local level, we show that polarisation is consistently, substantially, and significantly higher in municipalities with low levels of voter turnout. We argue that extremist voters are more likely to turnout on election days, and therefore if turnout is low, such voters are overrepresented, benefitting radical parties and driving up electoral polarisation. This is supported by the patterns observed in the data, where we observe that in municipalities with low levels of voter turnout, parties further away from the centre of the ideological spectrum tend to perform better than average. This observation is especially pronounced for radical parties at both extreme ends of the ideological spectrum.