Jeanne Morefield

Jeanne Morefield is Professor of Political Theory and Fellow at New College. She is also a Non-Residential Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, Washington DC. Before coming to Oxford she taught as Associate Professor of Political Theory at the University of Birmingham, Professor of Politics at Whitman College, and was a Professorial Fellow at The Institute for Social Justice, Australian Catholic University. Between 2016 and 2019 she served as Co-President of the Association for Political Theory.

The Normalization of Stigmatized Political Symbols

We document a large increase in displays of national flags in Spain following the referendum on Catalan independence. We argue that this behavioral change is better explained by a change in norms than a change in people’s preferences. The Spanish flag was associated with Spain’s authoritarian past, and hence stigmatized. The process of Catalan independence gave individuals with nationalist views an incentive to publicly display them, initiating a process of norm change.
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