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The willingness of voters on the losing side to accept electoral outcomes – losers’ consent – is essential to democratic legitimacy. This article examines the role of emotions in shaping people’s perceptions of electoral fairness, arguing that voters on the losing side who feel angry are less willing to accept democratic outcomes. This is examined in the context of the 2016 Brexit referendum, as well as the 2019 UK general election, using original survey data and an experiment in which specific emotional responses (anger and happiness) are induced to test the causal effect of emotions. The results show that losers who felt angry about an electoral outcome are less likely to accept the legitimacy of the democratic process and that anger has a causal effect in reducing losers’ consent. These findings suggest that politicians may be able to influence voters’ faith in democracy by mobilising emotional responses.

We expand upon the following pre-registered research that focused on the United Kingdom: https://osf.io/zc7b2/?view_only=1820075f934c4adabd18aeaa8033842f In this study, we adapt the survey experiment to the US context and run it in the United States.

This project uses a conjoint experiment to examine how personality differences between immigrants affect people’s attitudes towards those immigrants. We will give respondents descriptions of two fictional immigrants, including information on their personality traits, and ask them to decide which they would prefer to admit to the country. Our two research questions are a) whether people prefer immigrants with traits which are typically seen as desirable (industriousness etc.), and b) whether people prefer immigrants with matching personality traits to themselves. We measure personality using the aspect scales which disaggregate the Big Five traits into ten aspects.

Our research project attempts to examine how deep-rooted individual differences in personality structure preferences towards admitting immigrants to Britain. Although some research has already examined how personality is linked to attitudes towards immigrants at the level of the Big Five Personality Traits, scholars are increasingly interested in more nuanced analyses. Our project’s contribution to the literature is two-fold: First, we split up each of the Big Five into its two aspects based on the Big Five Aspect Scales (BFAS), which will be experimentally signaled to respondents as the traits of two fictious immigrants. Second, we also ask the respondents to fill out the BFAS questionnaire themselves to find out whether the public prefers immigrants with matching personality characteristics. We use an innovative conjoint experiment posed to a representative sample of the British electorate (N = 3,000) to test this. The respondents will be informed in an introductory text that these immigrant profiles are purely hypothetical. YouGov, a reputable and well-regarded international data analytics firm, will be responsible for survey implementation.

In this study, we examine which variations of Facebook advertisement content are most effective in recruiting participants to an online survey and a subsequent online discussion session. We vary the motivational element of the advertisement text to either focus on material, social or efficacy incentives. We also vary the information about the discussion session to either convey information about the content of the discussion (politics or no mention of the content), and the type of discussion (adversarial or deliberative). Finally, we also vary how explicitly targeted an advert is to the potential respondent, either mentioning a respondent’s gender and age group in the advert or not. We use Facebook A/B testing to explore which types of advertisement content are most effective in recruiting participants.

We are witnessing increasing affective polarization – a partisan divide that fuels out-group animosity and prejudices - in many parts of the world. What drives affective polarization? Observational studies have suggested that both elite polarization and interpersonal ‘echo chambers’ are drivers of polarization. In this study, we build on this literature to explore the micro-mechanisms of how the political environment shapes affective polarization. We argue that since affective polarization is rooted in emotional group-based attachments, they are best explored in a social setting. We use an experimental social setting - an online group discussion - to examine how affective elite polarization and group composition shapes affective polarization among partisans in Britain. Our participants, who are party supporters but otherwise broadly representative of the British population, are placed in groups with either like-minded partisans (an ‘echo chamber’) or in a heterogeneous group. They are also exposed to competing elite arguments about a policy issue that are more or less emotive in tone. Following a discussion on the policy, participants answer a survey about their attitudes towards in- and out-group partisans. This experimental design therefore enables us to examine how group composition and elite cues impact affective polarization of partisans.

How do governments ensure public compliance with protective policies that restrict individual liberties during a crisis? In this article, the British public’s reaction to mask mandates during the Covid-19 pandemic is examined. We argue that providing information about health risks makes people more willing to comply and that the effectiveness of the information depends on the source. This argument is tested with the help of aggregate public opinion and individual-level experimental data collected in the UK in 2020 and we find that the British public adapted its willingness to wear a mask rapidly and in line with government regulation. Moreover, results from a survey experiment show that simply providing information about risk is sufficient to elevate people’s willingness to wear masks. Interestingly, there is no clear partisan divide in the willingness to comply, suggesting that government messages about risk and responsibility encourage individuals to make sacrifices in times of crisis regardless of which party they support.

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-eup-10.1177_14651165211032766 for The Brexit deterrent? How member state exit shapes public support for the European Union by Sara B Hobolt, Sebastian Adrian Popa, Wouter Van der Brug and Hermann Schmitt in European Union Politics

This project aims to study the effectiveness of strategies designed to counter illiberal behavior of politicians. To test our theoretical expectations concerning the effectiveness of different counter strategies, we develop a conjoint experiment that randomly assigns respondents to scenarios with candidates that are involved in various controversies as well as reactions to these controversies. Only some of these controversies pertain to illiberal views and behavior. This experiment will allow us to examine the causal effect of both behaviors and responses to these behaviors on candidate choice and candidate approval.

Foundations of European Politics introduces important tools of social science and comparative analysis. The first part of the book acts as an introduction to the topic, looking at democratic politics and multilevel politics in Europe. The second part moves on to citizens and voters, considering issues related to ideology and voting decisions. Part III looks at elections and introduces electoral systems and direct democracy, representation, political parties, and party competition. The next part is about government and policy. The last part looks at the rule of law, democracy, and backsliding.

Supplemental material files: online appendix; replication file Research has shown that emotions matter in politics, but we know less about when and why politicians use emotive rhetoric in the legislative arena. This article argues that emotive rhetoric is one of the tools politicians can use strategically to appeal to voters. Consequently, we expect that legislators are more likely to use emotive rhetoric in debates that have a large general audience. Our analysis covers two million parliamentary speeches held in the UK House of Commons and the Irish Parliament. We use a dictionary-based method to measure emotive rhetoric, combining the Affective Norms for English Words dictionary with word-embedding techniques to create a domain-specific dictionary. We show that emotive rhetoric is more pronounced in high-profile legislative debates, such as Prime Minister’s Questions. These findings contribute to the study of legislative speech and political representation by suggesting that emotive rhetoric is used by legislators to appeal directly to voters. We acknowledge the generous funding from the European Research Council (ERC GA647835, EUDEMOS).

Partisanship is a powerful driver of economic perceptions. Yet we know\ud less about whether other political divisions may lead to similar evaluative biases. In this article, we explore how the salient divide between ‘Remainers’\ud and ‘Leavers’ in the UK in the aftermath of the Brexit referendum has given\ud rise to biased economic perceptions. In line with the cognitive dissonance\ud framework, we argue that salient non-partisan divisions can change economic\ud perceptions by triggering processes of self- and in-group justification. Using\ud both nationally-representative observational and experimental survey data,\ud we demonstrate that the perceptions of the economy are shaped by the Brexit\ud divide, and that these biases are exacerbated when respondents are reminded\ud of Brexit. These findings indicate that perceptual biases are not always rooted\ud in partisanship, but can be triggered by other political divisions.