Growing concerns with political polarization have led to a proliferation of research on its consequences. This paper presents results of a systematic literature review and meta-analysis of 25 articles that study the effects of polarization on participation. We categorize studies depending on polarization type (affective or ideological), level (individual or system), and participation type (electoral or non-electoral), to analyze the theoretical arguments proposed by studies in each category. According to a meta-analysis of all 104 coefficients describing the focal effect, individual-level affective and ideological polarization have a positive effect on participation even after publication bias is accounted for. The same analysis finds no evidence of an effect of system-level ideological polarization on election turnout net of publication bias. We conclude with a discussion of the challenges researchers of polarization and participation face, as well as gaps in the extant literature and opportunities for further research on this topic.

How should a democratic assembly be designed to attract large and diverse groups of citizens? We addressed this question by conducting a population survey in three communities with institutionalized participatory deliberative democracy in Switzerland. To examine participatory disposition in light of both individual characteristics and design features of the assembly that citizens contemplate joining, the survey comprised a conjoint experiment in which each respondent was asked to indicate his or her likelihood of participating in democratic assemblies with varying design features. The main result is that design features emphasizing the communitarian character of the assembly increase citizens’ willingness to participate, especially among disengaged citizens. Moreover, citizens were found to be less attracted by both very consensual and very adversarial meeting styles. Rather, we found meeting styles combining both controversy and consensus to be most favorable to assembly turnout. The implication is that practitioners of participatory or deliberative democracy must engage in community-building to foster turnout and inclusiveness in democratic assemblies.

In this article, we examine the determinants of citizens’ democratic preferences in federal states with politically significant national or linguistic diversity. Using original survey data from Belgium, Canada and Switzerland, we test whether members of national or linguistic minorities prefer different (electoral, direct or deliberative) forms of decision-making than majority members – since some give advantage to them more than others. While we find effects of citizens’ objective and subjective minority-majority position on their democratic preferences, individual-level predictors such as satisfaction with the current functioning of democracy, economic well-being and political ideology remain at least as strong predictors. These findings enrich the literatures on democratic fatigue, reform and innovation by showing that even in states with significant national-linguistic diversity, democratic preferences seem to transcend communities, indicating room for cross-group consensus. Yet, since group-level factors have some relevance, democratic reforms need to pay attention to them to be inclusive of all societal segments.

This study examines the influence of mass obstruction tactics within the new climate movement on public support for activists and their goals. Using a survey experiment that manipulates different protest scenarios, we analyze the impact of obstructive protests with and without vigilante intervention on public opinion. Our results suggest that while obstructive tactics are perceived negatively by the public, they do not significantly affect support for climate activists’ goals. Vigilante repression does not moderate reactions to radical protests. The study highlights the complexity of using radical tactics in social movements and the challenges activists face in building coalitions and sustaining mobilization efforts.

The higher-educated were long supposed to be winners of technological change, but recent evidence indicates that they feel (and are) increasingly exposed to the risk of technological redundancy. Based on what is known about how lower- to medium-skilled workers respond to technological exposure, this new sense of vulnerability among the higher-educated could have significant political effects – specifically increased support for right-wing populist parties – but empirical evidence on this is still lacking. I address this gap and investigate the effects of technological vulnerability on the party preferences of the higher-educated using survey data from the 2022 Risks that Matter survey. I find that feeling technologically vulnerable does indeed increase support for populist right-wing parties and reduce support for left parties among the higher-educated. I also conduct mediation analyses to explore the mechanisms behind these patterns and find evidence for a significant but substantively small mediation effect of social policy preferences.

Diversity policies have become a common element of public policy-making in Europe. At the European, national, regional and local levels, efforts are made to meet demands arising from a growing socio-cultural diversity and to ensure more equal participation of disadvantaged groups. And yet, little is known about the reception of such policies among the general public. This article addresses this gap. Based on an original and representative survey conducted in German cities, we examine the extent and structure of popular support for a range of diversity policies. Our results demonstrate that the German urban population altogether supports diversity policies, although unevenly across policy items. Somewhat surprisingly, it is not membership in groups expected to benefit from a diversity policy that mainly drives supportive attitudes, but general views on social equality and intergroup contact.

Collective skill formation systems were central to sustaining a high-road to economic development while upholding social inclusion in industrial societies. But can they still deliver on both economic and social grounds in knowledge-based societies? The article argues that the transition to the knowledge economy may in fact strengthen the ‘traditional’ advantage of collective skill formation systems over other skill formation systems on both economic and social grounds while simultaneously, however, exerting pressure on them to recalibrate some of their underlying policy arrangements. It is argued that this dual relationship has to do with the institutional architecture of collective skill formation systems, in particular, their ‘shared governance’ between employers, unions and governments, and with the nature of technological change in the transition to the knowledge economy, in particular the bias toward complex cognitive skills that it produces. Quantitative and qualitative evidence lends overall support for the argument. Regression analysis shows that collective skill formation systems are still positively associated with a range of socio-economic outcomes also in the new knowledge economy, although conditional analyses suggest that they may be subject to ‘diminishing returns’ on social inclusion grounds, i.e., their ability to effectively perform a social policy function is confronted with greater challenges at high levels of technological intensity. Case studies of Austria, Germany, and Switzerland show how collective skill formation systems have adapted to the knowledge economy following country-specific patterns.

Existing research has shown that there is considerable diversity when it comes to populist radical right party (PRRP) organization, but it is unclear why this is the case. The Netherlands provides an ideal laboratory to examine this question. Within two decades, the country witnessed the rise of several PRRPs, including the List Pim Fortuyn (LPF), the Party for Freedom (PVV) and Forum for Democracy (FvD). Despite ideological similarities, there are clear differences between these parties in terms of party organization. We argue that the organizational model of the FvD is a synthesis of the LPF and the PVV. To avoid internal dissension that brought about the demise of the LPF, the FvD adopted organizational elements of Geert Wilders’s ‘personal party’. The FvD also drew lessons from the financial limitations of the PVV by creating a large membership base. The findings show clear evidence of institutional learning. By learning from the experiences of others, PRRPs are becoming much better equipped to endure setbacks, which suggests that they are less likely to subside in the near future.

When do citizens vote against autocratizing incumbents? A growing body of literature addresses this question, yielding mixed results. I argue that an important component is how visible autocratization is to the average citizen. I conceptualize “visibility of autocratization” and posit that it is essential for understanding when citizens vote out incumbents attempting to entrench their power. I test the relationship between visible autocratization and incumbent re-election in the universe of competitive African elections since 1990. I show that voters punish autocratizing incumbents by voting them out, but they only do so when autocratization is visible. Additional analysis of Afrobarometer data in four countries experiencing autocratization shows that citizens’ perception of autocratization is systematically related to preference for opposition candidates, even after controlling for partisanship and economic performance, and irrespective of levels of partisan animosity. This study contributes both theoretically and empirically to understandings of political behavior under autocratization.

Comeback prime ministers (CBPMs), who return to office after a break, have been a notable, but conspicuously understudied, feature of several parliamentary democracies. This article provides the first ever comparative study of CBPMs. To make sense of the varying frequency of CBPMs in 18 established democracies from 1945 to 2024, we refer to competing party rationales of (re-)selecting prime ministers in different contexts, with the latter shaping the former. Apart from powerful presidents in semi-presidential regimes, the frequency of early replacements of prime ministers, the scope of alternations of the prime minister’s party, and the degree of intraparty personalization offer plausible explanations for the cross-national and temporal variation of prime-ministerial returns. While CBPMs have become less common since 1990, the remaining cases include some particularly powerful party leaders, underscoring the continuing importance of this neglected feature for understanding chief executive selection in established parliamentary democracies and beyond.

Regional governments are one of the largest but most understudied interest groups, employing a wide range of advocacy tactics like hiring professional lobbyists and face-to-face lobbying. However, we know little about why some succeed in influencing public policy while others do not. This gap arises because existing theories of interest groups and intergovernmental mobilization focus on resources—money and legitimacy—that regional governments typically lack control over. To address this, I propose a theoretical framework of intergovernmental lobbying success tailored to regional governments, emphasizing the convergence of five distinct conditions. Using new and original data on the 26 Swiss cantons’ influence on federal policy and employing set-theoretic methods (csQCA), I demonstrate that no single condition explains intergovernmental lobbying success. Instead, five causal pathways lead to a regional government shaping federal policy in line with its preferences. These findings have significant implications for understanding the effects of intergovernmental lobbying on representation, inequality, and unequal policy responsiveness, potentially contributing to rising political discontent, growing rural resentment, or citizen alienation.