How do race and gender together shape Americans’ political ambition? Using original survey data with over-samples of black and Hispanic respondents, we analyze citizens’ nascent ambition for eight political offices across racial/ethnic groups and gender. We reveal that the primary gap in nascent political ambition is not between men and women but between white men and the majority of the polity. There is no consistent gender gap in ambition among black or Hispanic respondents, nor between black and Hispanic men and white women. The gap between white men and other respondents is most pronounced for local offices, which mark both the starting point and final stage of many political careers. Our findings further indicate that while white men are particularly responsive to encouragement from non-political sources, ambition gaps narrow among respondents encouraged by political actors. Together, these insights help explain the persistence of white men’s overrepresentation in US politics.

Voting-advice applications (VAAs) are increasingly popular, but their impact on electoral outcomes is contested among political scientists. To bring new and stronger evidence to this debate, we conducted a series of pre-registered studies during the 2024 European Parliament elections in Germany, Italy, and France. In this paper, we report results for the highest-powered VAA encouragement experiment to date (total n = 6,501) and a novel regression discontinuity design around VAA recommendation thresholds (n = 10,535). While we observe null effects of VAA usage on voter turnout, the frequency of vote switching, and political knowledge, we find that our VAAs significantly improved the quality of vote switching: users were more likely to vote for their ideologically most aligned party. Based on these findings and a rich battery of supplementary analyses, we conclude that VAAs are effective precisely for their intended purpose: to help voters make better-informed vote choices.

How do political parties balance policy adaptation with ideological continuity? While spatial models emphasise external factors driving party behaviour, less attention has been given to internal party choices. This article innovates by proposing that parties differentiate between and make distinct strategical decisions regarding their ideological core and peripheral policy areas. We argue that parties maintain continuity in their ideological core while exhibiting greater flexibility in modifying their periphery. Using the Manifesto Project Corpus and an XLM-RoBERTa-based language model, we analyse manifesto sections to distinguish core from peripheral segments. Our findings show that parties take clearer stances in their ideological core while adapting their periphery more flexibly, with niche parties displaying this pattern more strongly than mainstream parties. Electoral setbacks lead parties to adopt more extreme peripheries, while cores remain stable. These results highlight the strategic importance of the core–periphery distinction in party communication and suggest that studies of party competition should consider where policy shifts occur within parties’ electoral programmes.

The 2016 election serves as an important case study in understanding how gendered political contexts can shape emotional reactions and engagement, particularly among women. Two important features of that election, Trump’s treatment of women and Clinton’s historic run for office, influenced emotional reactions to politics in distinct ways. We used two experimental designs in which participants were randomly assigned to read vignettes about Trump’s treatment of women or Clinton’s historic run for office. Reading about the former led to higher anger, especially among Democratic women and men, while reading about the latter increased enthusiasm among highly educated women. These elevated emotions increased intended future engagement. We conducted a third study in which we induced anger about Trump’s treatment of women and found that it led to greater intended engagement.

Many localities in the United States are, or have been at some point in their past, economically dependent on a single industry. This leaves local governments vulnerable to capture by dominant firms. In such places, business interests may shape not only policy outcomes, but the size, structure, and capacity of government itself. Focusing on the case of eastern coal country in the twentieth century United States, this paper presents evidence that the coal industry hindered the growth of local government capacity where it was dominant. A difference-in-differences design and instrumental variables analysis show that coal-dependent counties employed fewer public workers, collected less tax revenue, and spent less on government services than comparable areas, with the latter two effects persisting long after the industry’s decline. These findings illustrate that local political economy in the early phases of institutional development can shape the trajectories of governance in lasting ways.

Do initiative and referendum campaigns enable voters to make coherent decisions? Do the dynamics of opinion formation differ across ballot measures? Despite extensive research on direct democratic processes, these questions remain underexplored. Using rolling cross-section data on two citizen-sponsored initiatives in California and two referendums in Switzerland, we examine the dynamics of voters’ knowledge about party cues and arguments for and against ballot measures in the run-up to direct democratic votes. Moreover, we assess the extent to which these dynamics help voters to cast votes that are in line with their party cue and consistent with their position on arguments. The results present a nuanced picture: while campaigns increase voters’ knowledge and help them to make more coherent choices, there is significant variation across ballots in knowledge acquisition and resulting degree of in-line and consistent voting.

The article offers a new defense of democratic meritocracy. Existing defenses of the hybrid regime have centered on ordinary citizens’ lack of sophisticated political knowledge and the importance of having particularly able individuals in charge of governing. But since electoral democracy also contains certain built-in mechanisms that, when combined with a functioning party system, are capable of reducing the cognitive burdens of average voters and empowering more competent individuals, such defenses fail to make a compelling case for democratic meritocracy. Specifically, they owe us a fully developed account of how those mechanisms of electoral democracy will be weakened by its other inherent features so that the hybrid regime becomes a desirable alternative. This article provides such an account by exploring how a well-designed democratic meritocracy can better avoid pathologies of unconstrained political competition that are not only troublesome in themselves but which also undermine electoral democracy’s ability to generate superior political outcomes.

In a political wave that has been emulated across many African states, state-sponsored homophobia is being entrenched via draconian laws. Social movements grapple with countering these state-driven initiatives and altering ingrained anti-LGBTQ societal attitudes. Drawing on a survey experiment developed with guidance from Zimbabwean activists, this study tests the effectiveness of locally rooted messages that affirm queer indigeneity and contest claims that homosexuality is ‘un-African’. We find that ‘rooted’ messages incite no backlash, while an indigenous message reduces prejudice towards LGBTQ neighbors and a liberation message may increase support for LGBTQ-equal rights. These findings are important as they provide empirical support for effective strategies to combat anti-LGBTQ sentiments in challenging contexts. They also speak to broader political science debates on norm contestation and the limits of universal human-rights framing in nationalist and post-colonial contexts, demonstrating that activist-informed rooted messages offer a powerful alternative in shaping opinion on contested rights.

The rise of China as a global power has been a prominent feature in international politics. Simultaneously, the United States has been engaged in ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and South Asia for the past two decades, requiring a significant commitment of resources, focus, and determination. This paper investigates how third-party countries react to the United States’ preoccupation with these conflicts, particularly in terms of diplomatic co-operation and alignment. We introduce a measure of US distraction and utilize network-based indicators to assess diplomatic co-operation or alignment. Our study tests the hypothesis that when the US is distracted, other states are more likely to co-operate with its principal rival, China. Our findings support this hypothesis, revealing that increased co-operation with China is more probable during periods of US distraction. However, a closer examination of state responses shows that democracies distance themselves from China under these circumstances, while non-democracies move closer.

In post-imperial European states, debates about imperial legacies – centred on issues such as colonial statues, police treatment of minorities, and school curricula – have intensified in recent years. Yet little systematic research examines public attitudes towards empire or their political impact. We develop a framework linking imperial nostalgia with political preferences and present findings from Britain using a national survey and conjoint experiment. First, we identify a distinct public opinion dimension on empire, ranging from nostalgic to critical. Second, we show that imperial nostalgia strongly predicts party evaluations and vote intentions, with effects comparable to those of immigration attitudes and left–right economic values. Finally, a conjoint experiment reveals that elite positions on empire influence voter preferences, but do so asymmetrically: right-wing opposition to criticism of the imperial past is stronger than left-wing support. These findings underscore the contemporary political relevance of imperial nostalgia in post-imperial Europe.

Since the 2010s, social scientists have increasingly conducted survey-experimental studies that explore what factors drive public attitudes towards migrants in host countries. We conducted a systematic meta-analysis of 118 such studies, comprising 428,881 respondents from fifty-three countries. We find that sociotropic economic concerns play a key role, with individuals being more welcoming towards migrants who contribute to the economy through their professional occupation, education, or language skills. In contrast, there is limited evidence that hosts evaluate migrants based on egocentric economic concerns. Cultural concerns are also important; notably, we uncover a persistent anti-Muslim bias. Humanitarian concerns shape attitudes as well – especially towards forcibly displaced migrants, who are generally viewed more favorably than economic migrants. Climate migrants place between conflict migrants and economic migrants in terms of public perception. Our meta-analysis raises several questions that remain unanswered in the literature, suggesting important directions for future research.

Why do politicians sometimes deliver passionate speeches and sometimes tedious monologues? Even though the delivery is key to understanding political speech, we know little about when and why political actors choose particular delivery styles. Focusing on legislative speech, we expect legislators to deliver more emphatic speeches when their vote is aligned with the preferences of their constituents. To test this proposition, we develop and apply an automated video analysis model to speech recordings from the US House of Representatives. We match the speech emphasis with district preferences on key bills using data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study. We find that House members who rise in opposition to a bill give more passionate speeches when public preferences are aligned with their vote. The results suggest that political actors are not only mindful of public opinion in what they say but also in how they say it.

The movement of capital across borders has never been easier, as evidenced by the recent proliferation of offshore financial services. But these services are a double-edged sword: while boosting economic efficiency, they can also facilitate illicit financial activity. In this paper, we discuss the symbiotic relationship between financial liberalization and the pursuit of financial anonymity by secrecy-seeking actors. We examine a hide-and-seek dynamic between governments increasing monitoring of international finance and actors seeking anonymity via offshore financial centers. Under what conditions can international financial monitoring have the unintended consequence of increasing the use of poorly regulated and opaque offshore financial services? We examine this dynamic in the context of US targeted sanctions. Using the Office of Foreign Asset Control’s Specially Designated Nationals data and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists Offshore Leaks Database, we show that increases in US targeted sanctions provoke firms and individuals from targeted countries to seek low-supervision offshore financial centers.

Democratic backsliding occurs incrementally, but the empirical study of how citizens respond to undemocratic politicians has been predominantly static. I formulate and test predictions about how different sequences of backsliding shape accountability. Using a novel preregistered experiment ($N = 4,234$) capturing the reality that democratic transgressions are committed by elected officials step by step, I find that a majority of American respondents – against the backdrop of partisan and policy interests – are willing to electorally remove the incumbent as episodes of democratic backsliding unfold. Moreover, incumbents who incrementally decrease the severity of democratic transgressions are held accountable more promptly than incumbents who incrementally increase or sporadically vary the severity. By establishing a new experimental framework to study democratic backsliding, my dynamic approach not only paints a more nuanced picture of Americans’ willingness to defend democracy, but also demonstrates that sequence matters in shaping voter behavior amid incremental transgressions of democracy.

Extensive research on judicial politics has documented disparities in adjudication and biases in judging. Yet, lacking statistical methods to infer individual preferences from group decisions, existing studies have focused on courts publishing individual judges’ opinions, leaving a gap in understanding collegial courts that report only collective and unanimous (‘per curiam’) panel decisions. We introduce a statistical methodology to identify the most fitting decision-theoretic models for such collective decisions, infer judges’ individual preferences, and quantify the inconsistency in the courts’ decisions. This methodology is applicable in various small group decision-making contexts where group assignments are repeated and exogenous. Applying it to the Swiss appellate court for asylum appeals, where decisions are made in three-judge panels, we find that in 45 per cent of cases, the chair-as-dictator rule applies (rather than majority rule). Although judges’ preferences vary strongly with partisanship, the partially collective decision making of the panel moderates this heterogeneity.

This article examines the firm-level roots of anti-system political attitudes, focusing on Jair Bolsonaro’s rise in Brazil. Using Brazil’s RAIS dataset, a comprehensive matched employer–employee longitudinal database, and exclusive data on Aliados apoios, a unique dataset of over 69,000 Bolsonaro supporters, this study provides new insights into the employment trajectories of his base. Paired with an original representative online survey of full-time workers featuring observational and experimental components, the findings show that Bolsonaro supporters faced significant declines in wages and occupational premia relative to similar workers. Experimental evidence reveals that poor job quality, workplace unfairness, and wage inequality information might fuel anti-democratic attitudes. By leveraging distinctive data and methods, this article uncovers how firm-level inequalities shape populist and anti-system sentiments, offering a novel perspective on the political consequences of economic disparity and bringing nuance to economic theories of populism.

Do governing elites who engage in undemocratic practices face accountability? We investigate whether American state legislators who publicly acted against the 2020 presidential election outcome sustained meaningful sanctions in response. We theorize that repercussions for undemocratic activities are selective – conspicuous, highly visible efforts to undermine democratic institutions face the strongest ramifications from voters, other politicians, and parties. In contrast, less prominent actions elicit weaker responses. Our empirical analyses employ novel data on state legislators’ anti-election actions and a weighting method for covariate balance to estimate the magnitude of punishments for undemocratic behavior. The results indicate heterogeneity, with the strongest consequences targeting legislators who appeared at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, and weaker penalties for lawmakers who engaged in other forms of antagonism towards democracy. We conclude that focusing sanctions on conspicuous acts against democratic institutions could leave less apparent – but still detrimental – efforts to undermine elections unchecked, ultimately weakening democratic health.

In the global waste trade, importers buy containers of waste and scrap to meet demand for raw materials, especially in the Global South. But post-processing leftovers generate localized negative externalities. I use the waste trade as a setting to establish that low-capacity states can and do use tariffs as a tool in their environmental policy repertoire. Product-level tariffs can serve as Pigouvian ’sin’ taxes that incentivize private market actors to limit transactions and/or increase state revenue, both channels that can result in improved environmental outcomes. For evidence, I leverage the ‘China garbage shock’: in 2017 China banned imports of twenty-six waste products (HS six-digit), which disrupted economic–environmental trade-offs in other, newly competitive markets awash in diverted imports. Using novel data on 179 traded waste products and product-level tariffs (1996–2020), I demonstrate that those that received the shock raised tariffs in ways consistent with environmental protection.

With environmental protests on the rise, we ask: how do they affect support for pro-environment and environment-critical movements? We answer this question using evidence from two studies—a survey experiment and media content analysis—conducted in the Netherlands, a leading country in the green transition. Our experimental findings reveal an asymmetric bias in public support for protests. For the same protest action, public support is higher for environment-critical movements compared to pro-environment ones. This bias is most pronounced among right-leaning individuals with low education and low trust in science and politics. Our content analysis traces the bias back to newspaper reporting. While attention to protest groups is balanced across tabloid and broadsheet newspapers, tabloid reporting is more negative about pro-environment movements. These results highlight an important aspect of the backlash against environmental policies: a bias against pro-environment movements within parts of the public and media.

As private actors turn to international courts (ICs), we argue that judges can adopt pro-individual rights agendas to promote their own legitimacy. By leveling the odds for disempowered individuals and spotlighting their rights claims, ICs rebut charges that they are playthings of the powerful and cultivate support networks in civil society. We assess our theory by scrutinizing the first IC with private access: the European Court of Justice (ECJ). Established as an economic court and alleged to conceal a pro-business bias, we leverage original data demonstrating that the ECJ publicizes itself as protector of individuals and matches words with deeds. The ECJ ‘levels’, favoring individuals’ rights claims over claims raised by businesses boasting better legal teams. The ECJ then ‘spotlights’ pro-individual rights rulings via press releases that lawyers amplify in law journals. These findings challenge claims that ICs build legitimacy by stealth and the ‘haves’ come out ahead in litigation.