“A conservative is a liberal urban dweller who has been mugged”: A longitudinal study on the links between victimization and voting preferences

We conducted a longitudinal study with a sample of Italians living in Piemonte, a North-Western Italian region (N = 799, 55.2% men, mean age = 53.57, SD = 15.90), aimed at analyzing the effects exerted by criminal victimization on participants’ voting preferences, assessed in terms of voting intention, between January 2005 (T1) and January 2006 (T2). Three sets of predictors of voting intention at T2 have been entered in a hierarchical moderated regression: (a) socio-demographic variables and voting intention as measured at T1, used as control variables; (b) direct and indirect victimization occurred between T1 and T2; and (c) the interactions between direct and indirect victimization on the one side and some proxy indicators of community’s disorder and of participants’ vulnerability on the other side. As hypothesized, direct and indirect victimization did not influence our dependent variable. However, a significant interaction between indirect victimization and living in a large town has been detected: Participants’ conservatism increased only among victimized urban dwellers. Implications, limitations, and possible developments of this research are discussed.