The agricultural sector and its right-wing party preference : the influence of environmental protection policies on it

Past studies have focused on the relation between right-wing parties and people working in the agricultural sector, but this bachelor thesis takes a new approach and analyzes the influence of environmental protection policies on this relation. Seven countries are selected to answer the research question: To what extent do the stringent environmental protection policies weaken the right-wing party preferences of people working in the agricultural sector in Western countries in the European Union from 2008 until 2018? The formulated hypotheses expect the agricultural sector to vote more for right-wing parties than the other economic sectors, and this relation is assumed to be strengthened by right-wing parties speaking favorably about agriculture and weakened when the parties support environmental protection policies. The analysis of the descriptive statistics and logistic regression confirms all but one hypothesis. The results suggest that the difference in right-wing party preferences between the agricultural sector and other economic sectors increases when the parties speak favorably about agriculture. However, the right-wing party support for environmental protection policies does not influence the right-wing party preferences. The answer to the research question is that environmental protection policy support does not weaken the right-wing party preferences of the agricultural sector.