In short: Sweden shows a clear asymmetry in place-based resentment, with rural respondents expressing more resentment toward urbanites than vice versa, but this does not make them more negative to political statements made by urban politicians.

Main finding: Despite these tensions, we find no place-based bias. Rural respondents were not less receptive toward urban politicians’ political statements, and urban respondents were not less receptive toward rural politicians’ statements.

Descriptively, we find clear divides: Rural respondents showed stronger in-group identity, higher resentment, and more negative stereotypes of urbanites, compared to urban respondents.

We ran a pre-registered online survey experiment (n = 2,051), experimentally varying whether statements came from rural or urban politicians.

SÅ GRYM!! ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Big congrats!! So well deserved! 🙌