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Voters are affected by cues from their immediate social environment. One of these cues consists of the political opinions available and accepted in people's neighbourhoods, which are theoretically expected to affect vote choices through direct or indirect forms of communication. We test this assertion by employing a longitudinal design combining fine-grained geo-coded panel data with election results on a uniquely local level in the Netherlands. We assess the effect of the level of support for parties in a neighbourhood (consisting of just 624 households on average) on the vote choices of individuals 5 years later, while controlling for their previous vote choice. We find that the political preferences of neighbours indeed affect respondents' subsequent vote choice, but only for those voters who feel strongly embedded in the local community. We conclude that, even in the highly fragmented Dutch context, the political choices of citizens can be influenced by neighbourhood effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By now we are familiar with studies which tie being 'left behind' to voter support for populist or other extreme views. In the UK case, this is seen in support for Brexit but can also apply to support of parties such as UKIP (e.g. Bolet, 2021; Ford and Goodwin, 2014). Comparative studies show that electoral support for populist parties in part reflects lowered trust in mainstream politics (e.g. Geurkink et al., 2020; Keefer et al., 2021; Mauk, 2020), which is seen as a behavioural indicator of slipping legitimacy. Political support for populist movements is interpreted as declining legitimacy of existing governments, and that decline is seen as being tied to economic stress and the 'left behind' areas. In this article, we ask whether economics stresses also have impact upon another and possibly more direct measure of government legitimacy – tax morale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Democratic innovations aim to strengthen citizen participation in democratic decision‐making processes. Building on theories of deliberative democracy, participatory democracy and direct democracy, different types of democratic innovations have been developed, ranging from mini‐publics, to participatory processes and referendums and citizens’ initiatives. Over the last four decades, an expanding number of scholars have investigated the effects of these democratic innovations on citizens. However, even though a considerable amount of research has been done, there currently exists no overview of the effects of different types of democratic innovations on citizens’ attitudes, behaviour and capabilities. In addition, it is unclear which effects prove robust across studies, and which effects require more investigation.The aim of this paper is to systematically evaluate what we know and what we do not know yet about the effects of democratic innovations on citizens who participate in them. In order to do so, we conduct a meta‐analysis of 100 quantitative empirical studies published between 1980 and 2020. We find, perhaps unsurprisingly, that mini‐publics are widely researched for their effects on citizens, whereas studies into the effects of participatory processes and referendums and citizens’ initiatives on participating citizens are much less frequent. We also find that participation in mini‐publics changes citizens’ policy attitudes and positively affects citizens’ political attitudes, knowledge, internal efficacy and reasoning skills. For participatory processes, our analyses indicate that they appear to have a positive effect on participants’ political attitudes and knowledge and no effect on participants’ internal efficacy, but there are too few studies to draw robust conclusions. Participation in referendums and citizens’ initiatives appears to have a positive effect on participants’ knowledge and internal efficacy, even though these findings should also be considered preliminary due to the limited number of studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research has examined the relationship between ethnic outgroup-size at the neighbourhood level and Brexit support, yet there is a lack of understanding on the factors that moderate these effects. This paper critically extends prior debate by focusing on how personality traits moderate not only the extent to which the levels (2011) of ethnic outgroup-size in individuals' residential neighbourhoods but also the increase thereof (2001-2011) are associated with individuals' preferences about the 2016 Brexit referendum. Using data from Understanding Society, we find that two personality traits, agreeableness and openness, are key moderators affecting the above-mentioned relationship. High-agreeable and high-open individuals are less likely than low-agreeable and low-open individuals to support Brexit. However, while the gap between low and highly agreeable individuals shrinks as ethnic outgroup-size increases, the gap widens between those higher vs. lower in openness. Our findings highlight the multifaceted role of personality traits as a driver of heterogeneous effects on political behaviour. In sum, this paper shows that analysing the complex and intertwined nature of both contextual and individual factors is fundamental for a better understanding, not only of the Brexit referendum but, more broadly, of anti-immigrant sentiment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political trust has long been seen as fundamental for societal cooperation and democratic legitimacy. However, evidence about its consequences are partial and fragmented, and we do not currently have a systematic understanding of whether political trust warrants such vast attention. This paper conducts a systematic review and meta-analysis of 61 studies reporting 329 coefficients derived from over three and a half million observations globally. After synthesising the conceptual and theoretical frameworks in the extant literature, the meta-analysis results show that trust is weakly to moderately related to outcomes as diverse as voter turnout, vote choice, policy preferences and compliance, but is unrelated to informal participation. These results are robust to a range of considerations such as the measurement of trust, modelling strategy, region of study, publication bias, and design of the study. The review also highlights substantial geographical and methodological gaps, particularly the reliance on cross-sectional designs. Substantively, the results show that trust is importantly and robustly related to what people want from their political systems and how they interact with it. By systematically analysing the extant research, the paper provides a robust, systematic, and empirical foundation to advance research on political trust. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Defining 'radical left' political actors by their challenge to contemporary economic norms, this article draws the example of Die Linke in Germany and analyses explanations for this party's support. Two theories are tested. First, the policy-proximity account, building off the Downsian spatial model and tested with three policy dimensions relating to economics, cultural policy, and migration policy. Second, the populism-based account, which defines this as a conflict between 'the people' versus 'elites'. Using German Longitudinal Election Survey data, this article carries out a large-N analysis of support for Die Linke. It uses multiple linear regression to test how far support for this party is explained by proximity between voters and the party, or by levels of populism among voters. Results showed greater support for Die Linke from proximal voters on each dimension; however, highly populist voters were not found to be more supportive of Die Linke. The article concludes in favour of a policy-proximity explanation but suggests the party's well-established nature may have altered voters' policy preferences, potentially leaving a reverse causal relationship and leaving in doubt the role of policy-proximity on radical left support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political investorism involves the use of financial investments to promote political aims, but has, with some recent exceptions, received scarce attention from political scientists although there are valid theoretical reasons to consider this a new form of political participation. Here, we add new knowledge to this research agenda by examining empirically whether political investorism constitutes a distinct mode of political participation. Furthermore, we explore the characteristics of political investors and why they use political investorism. We examine these issues using an original survey from Finland (n = 1065). Our results demonstrate that political investorism constitutes a distinct mode of participation that in particular appeals to young and well-educated women living in an urban setting. Finally, cultural ideological divisions (measured with GAL-TAN: Green-Alternative-Libertarian and Traditional-Authoritarian-Nationalist) mediate socio-demographic characteristics when explaining participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local visits by party leaders are an integral part of election campaigning around the world. In the age of media-driven elections, do they matter? How are local contests selected for a visit? Most importantly, what effect do they have on the vote? Using a unique dataset covering local visits by the major party leaders during the 2013 and 2022 Australian federal election campaigns, we address these questions. We find that marginality is the main criterion for selecting a seat for a visit, followed by its geographical location. Leader visits in 2013 mattered more to the vote than in 2022. We explain the differences between the two elections and the four leaders by the relative standing of each of the leaders among voters. Overall, we conclude that the electoral impact of a leader visit is modest and context-dependent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study explores the relationship between housing wealth and political outcomes at the regional level in South Korea, providing insights that extend beyond the scope of previous research, which has primarily concentrated on individual or macro levels. It focuses specifically on district-level dynamics within the unique context of South Korea to uncover the underlying mechanisms of housing politics. The findings indicate a clear trend: as the average price of apartments – a key indicator of housing wealth – rises in a district, there is an increased tendency for residents to support candidates from the conservative party. Furthermore, the data-driven analysis highlights the significance of housing wealth amidst various regional characteristic variables, particularly in its capacity to distinguish the target regions. By employing comprehensive data and a multi-dimensional analytical approach, this study unravels the intricate relationship between housing wealth and political outcomes within a regional context. In doing so, it greatly enhances our understanding of the impact of housing wealth on political outcomes, bridging the gap between individual behaviours and national trends, and underscoring the pivotal role of housing wealth in shaping regional political dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: An influential perspective argues that voters use interest group ratings and endorsements to infer their representatives' actions and to hold them accountable. This paper interrogates a key assumption in this literature: that voters correctly interpret these cues, especially cues from groups with whom they disagree. For example, a pro-redistribution voter should support her representative less when she learns that Americans for Prosperity, an economically conservative group, gave her representative a 100 per cent rating. Across three studies using real interest groups and participants' actual representatives, we find limited support for this assumption. When an interest group is misaligned with voters' views and positively rates or endorses their representative, voters often: (1) mistakenly infer that the group shares their views, (2) mistakenly infer that their representative shares their views, and (3) mistakenly approve of their representative more. We call this tendency heuristic projection.

Political scientists have increasingly operationalised 'Discourse' as a means through which actors promote their interests. Building on Plehwe (2011, 2014) and Hajer's (1995, 2006) concept of discourse coalition theory, I explore how actors promote their interests via discourse. I do this through the case of constitutional originalism: the interpretation of the US Constitution in according to its historical provisions, viewing citizens' rights as determined at the point of its drafting, irrespective of revisions appropriate to modern society. Such a view has become a mainstream philosophy. I show constitutional originalism's strategic utility for conservatives, as a study of shared 'flexible discourse' through which multiple actors pursue differing objectives. In short, actors us the same idea differently and this 'quid pro quo' entrenches both the narrative and establishes actors' goals. This question is the notion that ideology is a coherent thing: rather, it is a convenience that is strategically deployed by different members of the coalition. I develop the framework of Flexible Discourse Theory to this end. 'Discourse' is a strategic tool allowing for strength in number, fortifying individual groups' pursuit of their political ends and the political vehicle which allows differing value sets to be pursued. It is also a means through which diverse coalitions can be built, in which mediating discourses are compatible with diverse values and do not fall between blocs' ideological faultlines. Flexible discourses' strategic utility is an important story of political bloc and coalition formation. It elucidates the role of ideation as a deployable tool, through which coalitions are maintained. I explore this theory by analysing constitutional originalism's political uses for the American right, in the victory case for originalism, D.C. v. Heller (2008) on Second Amendment rights, and how this strategy is deployed towards a variety of other political stances. In brief, this is a study of how actors use ideology strategically and instrumentally to realise their interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In systems governed by contemporary democracy, investigating the factors influencing voter behavior remains an enduringly important agenda item. This is because understanding what influences voters and what does not is one of the most crucial issues for political parties and leaders aspiring to come into power. In this regard, there are numerous socio-economic reasons that influence the variability of voter support for political parties, leading to fluctuations in support for these parties. These changes are most visibly observed in election results. Voter behaviors, which result from complex interactions, often do not rely on a definitive prediction. Especially in today's political climate, certain leaders of specific political parties have become significant figures who capture the attention not only of their own party members but also of broader masses. These leaders have not only created a gravitational pull through their political actions and discourse but also through their personal characteristics. Some voters, due to the personal charisma and vision of these leaders, tend to vote for these leaders rather than being loyal to their parties. On the other hand, some voters tend to associate these leaders with their parties and align the leader's image with the party's policies. The perceived image of these leaders in society can play a decisive role in shaping attitudes towards political parties. Particularly, understanding whether the leader's image plays a regulatory role in this influence when evaluating the impact of a significant concept such as secularism on attitudes towards a political party is of great importance. Furthermore, some party leaders are more prominent than their parties due to their actions, discourse, and characteristics. While some voters vote for a party solely because of these leaders, others identify the leader and the party together. The perceived image of these leaders can be decisive in influencing the factors that affect attitudes towards the party. In this context, the focus of the study is to examine the regulatory role of the leader's image in the influence of secularism on attitudes towards a political party. To achieve this goal, a research was conducted on individuals aged 18 and over living in Tokat (n=396). The convenience sampling method was used in the research. SPSS PROCESS Macro was used to analyze the obtained data. In this study, four parties (AK Party, CHP, İYİ Party, Saadet Party) were included to examine the regulatory role of the leader's image in the influence of secularism on attitudes towards a political party. When selecting the parties to be included in the study, the parties' statements on secularism and anti-secularism were taken into account. Accordingly, CHP, as the party that most intensively uses secularism discourse, and Saadet Party, as the party that gives the most emphasis to anti-secularism discourse, were included in the study. AK Party and İYİ Party, on the other hand, were included in the research as two parties with discourse targeting both secular and conservative voters. In other words, parties that heavily use secularism and conservatism in their discourse and parties that are more moderate on these issues were included in the research. In addition to attitudes towards the Justice and Development Party (AK Party), the Republican People's Party (CHP), the İYİ Party, and the Saadet Party, the study also examined the perceived image of these parties' leaders. As a result of the research, it was determined that secularism has a positive effect on attitudes towards the AK Party, and Recep Tayyip ERDOĞAN's perceived image plays a regulatory role in this relationship. Furthermore, it was found that in the influence of secularism on attitudes towards the CHP, Kemal KILIÇDAROĞLU's perceived image plays a regulatory role. Finally, it was concluded that in the influence of secularism on attitudes towards the Saadet Party, Temel KARAMOLLAOĞLU's perceived image plays a regulatory role. It was also determined that secularism does not have an effect on attitudes towards the CHP, İYİ Party, and Saadet Party. Additionally, in the influence of secularism on attitudes towards the İYİ Party, Meral AKŞENER's leader image does not play a regulatory role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the first systematic study of the political behaviour of female members of China's national legislature, the National People's Congress (NPC). Women held 23 per cent of seats in the 12th NPC, yet they sponsored 44 per cent of all legislative bill proposals and more than half of the bills relevant to women's interests. Women sponsored more bills (4.8 bills) than did men (3.1 bills). We propose that there are two mechanisms driving women's outperformance: (i) women are more collaborative than men, and (ii) female leadership encourages female participation. We analyse 2,366 bills and show that women are disproportionately more active than men in all issue areas and are particularly engaged with women's issues. Our findings demonstrate that underrepresented regime outsiders (women) can carve out a space to amplify their voices, outperform insiders and shape policy direction to a certain extent within an authoritarian legislature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign aid plays a critical role in actualising pro-women outcomes in the Global South. However, there is a paucity of research on how gender and political ideology inform gender-oriented foreign aid to sub-Saharan countries. This study examines how gender and political ideology inform the trends of women-focused foreign aid donations from Australia, Canada, Finland, and Germany to sub-Saharan African nations from 2002 to 2016. During this period, government leaders and ministers in the donor countries were from different genders and political ideologies. The study reveals that female heads of government gave more women-focused aid to sub-Saharan Africa than male heads of government. The study also found that right-wing heads of government allocated more women-focused assistance to sub-Saharan Africa than left-wing politicians. This study points to the importance of the active role of female heads of government in effectively mainstreaming and furthering the idea of gender equality on a global scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An influential perspective argues that voters use interest group ratings and endorsements to infer their representatives' actions and to hold them accountable. This paper interrogates a key assumption in this literature: that voters correctly interpret these cues, especially cues from groups with whom they disagree. For example, a pro-redistribution voter should support her representative less when she learns that Americans for Prosperity, an economically conservative group, gave her representative a 100 per cent rating. Across three studies using real interest groups and participants' actual representatives, we find limited support for this assumption. When an interest group is misaligned with voters' views and positively rates or endorses their representative, voters often: (1) mistakenly infer that the group shares their views, (2) mistakenly infer that their representative shares their views, and (3) mistakenly approve of their representative more. We call this tendency heuristic projection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While extensive research has shown that policy outputs are punctuated, there is a paucity of research about the punctuation of public opinion and political participation. We know policymakers rely on political participation to understand public opinion, so we need to understand the patterns and flows of this participation, to help understanding democratic responsiveness, and how policy outputs behave. I advance punctuated equilibrium theory by applying it to individuals' decision to participate, and the policy issue they choose to engage with. I argue that bounded rationality and disproportionate information processing, driven by media and interest group coverage of trigger events, will result in a punctuated equilibrium pattern in both the decision to participate and the issues focused on. Using new datasets on the volume and topic of letters to the Australian Prime Minister and American President, I find consistent evidence of punctuations, using weekly, fortnightly, and annual data, across Australia and America, notwithstanding institutional, cultural, and behavioural differences. These results extend punctuated equilibrium further up the policy process chain than has previously been done, supporting its claim as a "full theory of government information processing." Doing this helps us to understand the difficulty in translating environmental and public demands into policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Politica y Sociedad is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

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In the last decade, affective polarization (AP) has become an increasingly salient topic in both public discourse and political science. Several different measurement instruments have been developed to empirically capture this phenomenon. With the rising interest that affective polarization is now also enjoying in Europe, it has become of the utmost importance to assess what these different measures capture, and to what extent their application travels to different contexts. In this study we test several AP measures on a student population with various European nationalities. We assess their overlap and effectiveness in mapping AP, to help future research working towards greater empirical clarity, and making informed choices on which kind of measures to include in questionnaires and data collections. The results indicate that, while different items usually produce different point estimates and sometimes different answer patterns, the measurement of affective polarization appears relatively indifferent to the choice of items. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cumhuriyet International Journal of Education is the property of Cumhuriyet University, Faculty of Education and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In mixed-member electoral systems, there is an interaction between the single-seat district arena and the proportional representation arena. The literature suggests that this interaction (or contamination) raises the number of parties in the single-seat district arena above what Duverger's Law and the M+1 rule suggest. However, the literature is exclusively quantitative and has enough limitations to doubt if what is observed is actually contamination, and if contamination is actually responsible for the increase in the number of parties. This contribution aims to reinforce the literature with evidence from a series of interviews with party strategists and coordinators in Mexico. The results indicate that, even with other factors at play, contamination exists as believed: parties' behaviour in the single-seat district arena is based on what they project in the proportional representation arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do populist leaders tend to win support from the same kinds of people abroad as they do at home? Since we know public opinion can shape foreign policy, the answer is important for understanding populists' potential to carry out their typically anti-establishment international agendas. We address this question through original surveys in three Southeast European EU-aspiring countries on one populist leader (US President Donald Trump), establishing that the answer is a qualified yes: It depends on geopolitical orientation. In Albania, where local elites are perceived to be aligned with American elites, Trump supporters stand out for the same dispositions linked to him in the US, including intolerance and Euroscepticism. But in Serbia, where the American elites opposed by Trump's own populism are seen as opposed to Serbia's own establishment, patterns are remarkably different: Trump sympathizers generally stand out for tolerance, support for the EU, and a general trust in politicians. In Kosovo, these differences collapse into its deep ethnic divide between Albanians and Serbs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of political science rests on assumptions about how policy makers and citizens behave. However, questions remain about how public policy can improve the government–citizen relationship. In this research note, we present behavioural insights (BI) as one way to address this gap. First, we argue that BI can be strategically used both to alleviate administrative burdens and to enhance citizen experience. Second, we argue that BI interventions can assist in several stages of the policy process, strengthening causal inferences about policy efficacy. Third, we present original data from Canada's ongoing experimentation with BI across multiple jurisdictions and areas of public policy. We conclude by acknowledging the myriad pathways through which BI research can engage with public policy to support the enhancement of citizen-oriented service delivery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic was, and continues to be, extraordinary in many ways, forcing governments around the world to implement equally extraordinary preventive measures, some of which were highly restrictive. However, such preventive measures were not sufficient per se to contain the spread of the virus through non-pharmaceutical (e.g., stay-at-home orders, recommendations about face-mask usage) or even pharmaceutical (i.e., a vaccine) interventions: to be effective, citizens had to comply with the guidelines implemented by the state. Social scientists, in particular behavioralists, have thus been playing a prominent role in the management of the pandemic. How have the governments around the world generated compliance with COVID-19 preventive measures? In this article, I first review who was more prompted to comply with preventive measures. I then move to presenting the commonly used explanations to make sense of levels of compliance. These explanations revolve around human predispositions, (political) attitudes, partisanship, ideology, cues, and institutional factors. I conclude by highlighting the role of social sciences in providing the best data and analyses on the relationship between citizens and the state in times of crisis, for the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]