European Journal of Political Research
Place, education, and voting along the transnational cleavage in Europe
2026-07-07
The transnational cleavage captures a divide between those with cosmopolitan orientations who are more positive about international migration, trade, and governance and those with more nationalist outlooks. Recent research has demonstrated that polarisation along this cleavage in Europe is increasingly linked to urban-rural differences: people living in urban areas tend to be more cosmopolitan than people in rural areas, but existing studies have not yet elaborately analysed differences in voting behaviour. Moreover, education is the most consistent predictor of attitudes related to the transnational cleavage, and higher-educated individuals more often live in cities. Urban-rural political differences may therefore reflect differences in educational attainment between urban and rural inhabitants. We take a longitudinal perspective to assess the degree of overlap between urban-rural and educational differences in voting for parties at the opposite ends of the transnational cleavage (‘GAL’ and ‘TAN’ parties), using data from all 11 rounds of the European Social Survey (2002–2024). We find that urban voters are overrepresented in the electorates of GAL parties and underrepresented in the electorates of TAN parties. These urban-rural differences are growing over time and, only for a small portion, overlap with educational divides in GAL/TAN voting. Although, overall, educational attainment remains more strongly related to GAL/TAN voting, both educational attainment and urban-rural residence have their own explanatory value. These findings underscore that ‘place’ increasingly matters in structuring political conflict across Europe and highlight the importance of further incorporating geography into future research on the transnational cleavage.