We examine whether different information frames affect how people perceive the domestic costs of sanctions and support sanctions. Using data from an information provision experiment in Germany and Poland, we demonstrate that people overestimate the costs of sanctions (Gross Domestic Product loss due to an energy embargo) in sending countries. Yet, this perception can be corrected through the provision of actual information, which in turn enhances the support for the sanction. Contrasting sanctions’ costs with other costs – Covid-19 costs and costs imposed on target countries – has no additional effect.

What determines the outcomes of negotiations is a central question in political science, and such negotiations are crucial in coalition systems where political parties distribute policy payoffs during coalition negotiations. In this paper, we argue that due to the combination of the non-separability of most public policies and the shared responsibility for policy outcomes under coalition governments, which policies a party manages to get included in a coalition agreement will reflect these policies’ popularity among the other governing coalition parties, rather than policy payoffs being driven by proportionality or relative salience. Using a unique dataset containing novel data on the budgetary impact of every measure proposed in election manifestos and coalition agreements over five government formations, we can directly observe the policy payoffs extracted by each party for participating in government, using a measure that is directly comparable across parties, policy areas, and time. The results have substantial implications for our understanding of the formation process and functioning of coalition governments.

For many years, political scientists have debated over voter competence in direct democracy. At the core of the discussion is whether this central institution enlightens citizens about political facts. However, scholars have primarily examined if direct democracy fosters general political knowledge even though referendums and ballot initiatives are policy-specific in nature, as citizens vote on particular political proposals. By utilising a range of unique panel survey data collected around four Danish European Union referendums, I show that voters’ knowledge of policy-specific information markedly increased during the campaigns. I also combine the survey data with an original media content analysis and find that the learning of issue-specific facts is more related to the opportunities provided by the media information environment than to individual ability or motivation. These results suggest that a broad group of voters acquire policy-specific facts that help them make informed choices when they are granted full control of political decision-making.

Two interrelated trends have narrowed the class backgrounds of policymakers over the past decades: a decreasing share of working-class MPs and a parallel rise of highly educated ‘career politicians’ with little occupational experience outside politics. Although these trends risk aggravating representational inequality, we know little about their causes. Focusing on parties as the main gatekeepers to parliament, we analyse how the class background of political candidates influences the chances of being nominated in electorally safer positions. Based on original data on MPs’ backgrounds and the German GLES Candidate Study, we show that candidates with a working-class background have lower chances to be placed in safe positions, especially in center-right parties. Careerists, in contrast, enjoy systematic advantages in the nomination process, at least in left-wing parties. Lacking individual resources is thus not the only obstacle to working-class representation, but political parties are important actors in shaping the class composition of parliaments.

Subjective group relative deprivation (SGRD) is a powerful driver of political protest and support for radical parties. Yet, we lack insights into whether such subjective perceptions of disadvantage attack the very core of democratic legitimacy, that is, citizens’ support for democracy. Against this backdrop, we investigate how SGRD relates to diffuse democratic support. We argue that perceptions of being systematically disadvantaged fuel disaffection with and resentment against the prevailing democratic system, whereas authoritarian systems with their strongmen leadership appear appealing as they promise a stronger in-group protection and pursue more confrontational in-group-out-group relations, which both can be understood as coping strategies to overcome an unfair disadvantage. Employing original – cross-sectional and panel – survey data, we show that SGRD has the potential to undermine citizens’ support for democracy across six European countries in 2020–2022. Our study highlights the negative impact of subjective disadvantage on support for democracy by combining literature from political psychology and political economy.

When democracy is eroded by democratically elected incumbents, it is up to others to defend democracy and sustain the democratic institutions. An emerging body of research looks at the roles, challenges, and tactics of these democratic defenders, yet there is no research that explores under what circumstances civil servants move from bystanders to democratic defenders. I argue that civil servants are prime candidates to defend democracy against incumbent-led autocratisation, which I conceptualise as ‘administrative democratic defence’. Based on in-depth, semi-structured elite interviews in the Netherlands, I argue that administrative democratic defence only occurs when three dilemmas are successfully navigated: civil servants need to perceive they have the capability to recognise autocratisation, they need to perceive they have access to legitimate instruments to halt it, and they need to be willing to use those instruments. In addition, I show how a resilient democracy requires continued awareness and action on its part – even in a highly democratic and liberal context.

Are citizens in western democracies developing affective attachments to the Left and Right as social-political groups? If so, one can hardly imagine a more consequential development for understanding the electoral behavior of Western publics. However, previous evidence suggesting such attachments are important (and growing) comes from a small number of single-case studies. In this paper, we expand the evidentiary basis for this idea by implementing a method that leverages existing survey data to test whether citizens in western democracies, over a long time period, have developed such group-based attachments. Specifically, we use surveys in which respondents place parties on the left-right scale to test for the existence of an out-group homogeneity effect between potential Left and Right identifiers. We argue that this pattern provides compelling indirect evidence of such group attachments and shows that the effect is both widespread across western democracies and increasing over time. As a proof of concept, we fielded original surveys in Denmark, Italy, and Sweden and found that our direct Left/Right attachment measures are strongly associated with the indirect evidence documented in our cross-national analyses. Thus, this paper provides an empirically justified call for scholars to invest in the development of appropriate survey batteries that directly measure affective attachments to the Left and Right in a large set of countries.

Affective polarization among citizens is often attributed to the harsh rhetoric and personal attacks that politicians direct at one another. However, the influence of elite rhetoric on affective polarization may work in both directions. We theorize that politicians can reduce affective polarization by making positive or respectful statements about their political opponents. A preregistered survey experiment with 2,000 citizens provides strong support for this expectation. Politicians’ congenial messages about their opponents significantly reduce affective polarization on two distinct measures. Specifically, the experimental treatments reduce citizens’ negative emotions toward outpartisans, as well as their desire to socially distance themselves from such outpartisans. The depolarizing effect of such messages does not depend on the political alignment of either the politician or the citizen, nor does it necessarily require high levels of political trust.

Previous research suggests the effects of negative campaigning are highly conditional on country context and the specific messages that are used. In this paper, we present an experiment on negative campaigning in an unexamined context in which existing studies could point to differing outcomes. We examine the effect of attacks placed in campaign leaflets on a candidate’s personal traits and policy positions in Great Britain. Unlike prior studies, our treatments are contrast ads and not purely negative ads. While the inclusion of positive messaging from the sponsor could increase voters’ parasocial relationship with the candidate, shielding them from backlash, the results from our experiment suggest that British voters view attacks on personal traits as too negative and lower their evaluation of the sponsor as a result.

Research indicates a lack of presence of lower socioeconomic status (SES) individuals in parliament, hindering their representation due to a lack of shared experiences between low SES citizens and representatives. Theorists argue that understanding low SES experiences depends not only on representatives’ own SES but also on those closest to them. However, little is known about whether elected representatives count lower SES citizens in their intimate network. Surveying 1,185 representatives across 13 Western countries, we examine the educational attainment and social class of their parents, partner, and two closest friends. In none of these countries do representatives’ ties mirror the share of lower SES citizens in the population. The results are only slightly better when we examine how many representatives have at least a single lower SES tie. We also find evidence for homophily. High SES representatives tend to associate with high SES individuals, and they tend to do that much more than high SES citizens associate with other high SES citizens. This shows that representatives who could benefit most from lower SES perspectives in their personal networks often lack them.

How do far-right actors influence mainstream parties over time? Previous research shows that mainstream parties contribute to the electoral success of far-right parties through coalitions or policy alliances. However, a long-term perspective on the influence of far-right actors, including parties, civil society organisations, and social movements, on mainstream parties’ communication is lacking. This article investigates how far-right actors and issues have influenced mainstream parties’ communication in Germany since the 1990s. Using automated text analysis, we analyse 520,408 articles from six newspapers. First, we semi-automatically collect far-right actors and mainstream parties and implement a structural topic model to analyse their issue agendas. Second, we use time-series analysis to examine agenda-setting effects and their drivers. The results show that far-right influence on mainstream parties’ communication has increased, particularly among opposition parties and around issues of Islam and migration. Notably, the agenda-setting effect cuts across party ideologies, indicating mainstream parties’ impact on the rise of the far right in democracies.

Judicial transformation may result either from shifts in institutional context (prompting behavioral adjustment among incumbent judges) or changes in the composition of the bench (particularly through court-packing strategies that introduce new appointees). This article examines the case of the Polish Constitutional Court to evaluate which of these mechanisms better accounts for the controversial transformation of the court since late 2015. Drawing on data from constitutional abstract review decisions spanning 2003 to 2023, we analyze the behavior of distinct cohorts of judges. Our findings reveal a marked alignment with government positions following the October 2015 parliamentary elections, especially among judges appointed by the newly elected ruling party. The evidence suggests that the transformation is driven primarily by changes in judicial composition rather than by behavioral adaptation among pre-existing judges.

Rising inequalities have been described as fertile ground for populist parties across the world. In this article, we investigate the role that inequality perception plays in strengthening populist attitudes and increasing support for populist parties. Using data from the International Social Survey Programme, we find that those who perceive greater inequality in society are more likely to support populist parties. To explore the causal relationship, we also conduct a survey experiment in Denmark, Germany, and Italy, randomly exposing participants to factual information about the wealth distribution. The results show that the perception of inequality can increase populist attitudes, but does not immediately affect the likelihood of voting for populist parties in this context. The findings speak to current debates on how inequalities and their perception became a pre-condition for the rise of populist parties all over Europe.

Climate policy remains inadequate even among leaders like the European Union. This is largely due to opposition from fossil fuel producers and heavy industrial sectors that are existentially threatened by decarbonisation. The rise of green industrial policy promises to advance climate policy by reducing this opposition and mobilising corporate supporters. But can climate policy strategies actually shift the balance of interest group mobilisation among expected winners and losers simply by using different policy instruments? I theorise that policy strategies (de)mobilise corporate interests through regulatory targeting. Corporations directly targeted by a proposed policy are more likely to lobby because of policy-specific informational advantages and more certain and immediate impacts. Compared to traditional climate policies that impose direct costs on fossil fuels, green industrial policies should therefore demobilise high-carbon firms and mobilise their low-carbon counterparts. I collect and code novel data on all corporate responses to online consultations in European Union climate and energy policy from 2017 to 2022. Dyadic regression analyses confirm that low-carbon sectors lobby mostly on green industrial policies while high-carbon sectors mobilise more around traditional climate policies, and that stakeholders are more likely to lobby when directly targeted by policies. These results document that climate policies can indeed determine climate politics, a finding that has implications for other policy areas characterised by business conflict and for interest group scholarship more broadly.

Under what conditions citizens accept public institutions as legitimate authorities is a key question in political science. Recent accounts suggest that populist citizens reject international organisations (IOs) as distant, elitist, and undemocratic. Conversely, technocratic citizens should favour IOs as they represent the pinnacle of depoliticised, expertise-driven decision-making. In this article, we provide the first joint analysis of technocratic and populist attitudes as drivers of attitudes towards IOs. We analyse a unique survey conducted in five European countries that covers four IOs and ask how individual populist and technocratic attitudes influence attitudes towards IOs. We find only conditional evidence for a structural association between technocratic and populist and IO attitudes, and credible evidence that country-specific experiences with populism in power moderate these associations. Our contribution has important implications for our understanding of citizen attitudes towards various forms of political representation and the legitimacy of IOs.

The 2024 election of Donald Trump has been followed by executive decisions never before experienced in the history of American democracy. This new approach is grounded on a radical right (RR) program that had already been put in place in the Hungary of Viktor Orbán, who is presented as a model by Trump. Both leaders have defined a performative communication style, attracting a large segment of their respective citizenry. This style is based on the strategic use of common sense. However, we barely know how commonsensical executive RR leaders are during one of the most sacred events in a liberal democracy: the annual State of the Union or State of the Nation address. Based on a critical discourse analysis of the multiple speeches produced by Trump and Orbán in the frame of these events, the current research investigates the routinized and multifaceted usefulness of common sense to contest liberal democracy. The findings indicate that these leaders use the state address as a ritual of liberal democracy to impose a new RR order grounded in commonsensical policies, polities, and authorities.

Research agrees that the importance voters ascribe to political issues, ie individual-level issue salience, affects political behaviour. However, due to measurement limitations, we lack research on who considers which issues important. Specifically, the often-used most-important-problem/issue question complicates between-individual comparisons of issue salience. Using a rarely employed measurement of issue salience and data from six Western European countries, this research note explores the salience of different issues across different socio-demographic groups. Our exploratory findings suggest that different socio-demographic variables affect different issues’ salience across and within individuals over time. Further, we find that predictors of individual-level issue salience and attitudes frequently differ – highlighting the importance of analysing them separately. We call for research on individual-level issue salience using measurements that enable the study of its determinants and analysing predictors of salience and attitudes separately.

Since the euro crisis, national stereotypes have often been present in the political and media discourse on European Union (EU) economic governance. Yet, despite the frequency of such stereotypes in political rhetoric and media coverage, little is known about their prevalence in public opinion or in connection with citizen preferences on EU redistribution. This article examines the relationship between national stereotypes held by EU citizens and their policy preferences for EU redistribution. We conduct an observational survey in four countries capturing regional differences in the EU: Germany (Western Europe), Italy (Southern Europe), Romania (Eastern Europe), and Sweden (Northern Europe). Our findings show that, on average, individuals who attribute more positive economic stereotypes (e.g., trustworthy, hardworking, efficient) to other EU nationalities tend to be more supportive of general solidarity in the EU, reducing inequality between member states, and the establishment of an EU-wide welfare state. Conversely, those who attribute more negative economic stereotypes (e.g., corrupt, greedy, lazy) to other EU nationalities are less likely to support such redistributive measures. We also find substantial heterogeneity between country samples, which may reflect differences in economic standing within the EU and historical experiences with stereotypes. Taken together, the findings reveal that national stereotypes are not only widespread in public opinion but also systematically linked to preferences for redistribution. The study contributes to the public opinion literature on transnational solidarity by showing how enduring national stereotypes can precede and inform narratives of deservingness.

For decades, party politics literature has argued that populist radical right (PRR) parties must distance themselves from their countries’ authoritarian pasts to achieve electoral relevance in a Sartorian sense. Yet, we now observe the growing success and influence of PRR parties that not only embrace nostalgia for this past but also maintain ties to it. The use of what we term ‘authoritarian nostalgia’ is not only becoming more widespread across politics but it has proven effective across diverse segments of the electorate. This study examines the extent to which (populist radical) right supporters approve of their countries’ authoritarian histories and view these past regimes favourably. Using original survey data fielded in Spain and Portugal and a novel set of survey items measuring authoritarian nostalgia, we find that supporters of VOX and Chega are more likely to express a broad sense of collective nostalgia, particularly through a longing for their country’s ‘old, glorious days’, but demonstrate strong nostalgia for Franco and Salazar’s authoritarian regimes more specifically. Furthermore, we observe similar affinities for the authoritarian past amongst traditional right-wing supporters, primarily among Partido Popular (PP) supporters in Spain, with weaker evidence for PPD/PSD supporters in Portugal. Our findings suggest that, rather than hindering electoral performance, authoritarian nostalgia can, in fact, stimulate (populist radical) right-wing electorates.

Recent scholarship devotes considerable attention to how social identities influence vote choice. However, group sympathies or group affect constitute another, often overlooked subjective component of the relationship between social groups and vote choice. Based on reference group theory and drawing on ANES data as well as recent Danish and Austrian election surveys, we examine how voters’ sympathies with a range of groups are related to party choice across time and space. We find that group sympathies are related to vote choice in all three countries, even when controlling for objective group memberships and social identities. Across time, most relationships are stable or strengthening and comparable in strength to the relationship between group memberships and party choice. The relationship between group sympathies and vote choice is, furthermore, conditioned by perceived linkages between groups and parties. Hence, analyses of the role of social groups in voting also need to include group sympathies to grasp the full influence of social groups.