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Support for democracy in the United States, once thought to be solid, has now been shown to be somewhat shaky. One of the most concerning aspects of this declining attachment to democracy is a marked age gap, with younger Americans less supportive of democracy than their older compatriots. Using age-period-cohort analysis of 12 national surveys collected between 1995 and 2019, we show that this age gap is largely a function of a long-term generational decline in support for democracy, with little evidence of an independent life-cycle effect apparent. The combination of generational decline without a positive and counterbalancing life-cycle effect offers a sober prognosis of how support for democracy in the United States might look in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Determining the existence of a relationship between judicial performance and citizens' trust in the legal system. Method: Cross‐classified multilevel models, using data from more than 20 European countries, 80 surveys, and 100,000 respondents, over a decade. Results: The longer the time that lower courts take, on average, to dispose of pending cases, the lower is the public's trust in their legal system. Conclusion: Judicial performance, operationalized as the ability of courts to avoid delays in the delivery of justice, is a significant correlate of citizens' evaluations of their country's legal system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We take a new look at electoral sectionalism and dynamic nationalization in presidential elections. We treat this problem as one of synchronism of electoral cycles, which we estimate by using wavelets. After providing a self-contained introduction to wavelet analysis, we use it to assess the degree and the dynamics of electoral synchronization in the United States. We determine clusters of states where electoral swings have been more and less in sync with each other and with the national cycle. Then, we analyze how the degree of synchronism of electoral cycles has changed through time, answering questions as to when, to what extent, and where has a tendency towards a 'universality of political trends' in presidential elections been more strongly felt. We present evidence strongly in favor of an increase in the dynamic nationalization of presidential elections taking place since the 1950s, largely associated with a convergence in most (but not all) Southern states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spectral analysis and ARMA models have been the most common weapons of choice for the detection of cycles in political time series. Controversies about cycles, however, tend to revolve around an issue that both techniques are badly equipped to address: the possibility of irregular cycles without fixed periodicity throughout the entire time series. This has led to two main consequences. On the one hand, proponents of cyclical theories have often dismissed established statistical techniques. On the other hand, proponents of established techniques have dismissed the possibility of cycles without fixed periodicity. Wavelets allow the detection of transient and coexisting cycles and structural breaks in periodicity. In this article, we present the tools of wavelet analysis and apply them to the study of two lingering puzzles in the political science literature: the existence of cycles in election returns in the United States and in the severity of major power wars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]