Research on populist attitudes has bloomed in recent years, especially among political science and communication scholars. While this trend is undoubtedly positive to unravel what the causes and consequences of individuals’ populism are, rapid accumulation of knowledge is also challenging, as numerous articles are published simultaneously using diverse theoretical, methodological, and data strategies. This systematic literature review considers all articles stored in the Web of Science and published in English that refer to populist attitudes, without time restrictions (N = 138). After a detailed reading of all articles, we focus on the most relevant findings considering populist attitudes both as dependent and independent variables. Main areas of consensus, disagreements, and guidelines for future research are considered.

Not only the content, but also the context of election pledges should affect how voters respond to broken and fulfilled pledges. Borrowing from other disciplines, the hypotheses in this study propose that voters with low expectations reward pledge fulfilment more than voters with high expectations, while voters with high fulfilment expectations punish pledge-breakers more severely than voters with low expectations. A survey experiment using real-life political events was designed where 2465 respondents first received information that either significantly raised or lowered their expectations of pledge fulfilment. They were then presented with the actual fulfilment status of the pledge, either confirming or disconfirming their manipulated expectations, and asked to give their perceptions of the governing party’s performance. Interestingly, the findings support the presence of a confirmation, not a disconfirmation bias, suggesting that pledge performance attitudes are formed more similarly to other political attitudes than evaluations of private/public goods or services. Combined with a negativity bias in media coverage of election pledges, this confirmation bias in voters provides a partial explanation of the low esteem voters generally hold of governments’ pledge fulfilment. The results have implications for our understanding of how pledge fulfilment matters to voters, and how governments are held accountable for their performance.

Despite increasing access to high quality television (TV) series in the golden age of television, political scientists (and especially scholars of comparative politics) have not systematically considered the possibilities that television series might offer for instruction. This article aims to fill this gap by illustrating the opportunities for teaching political science using TV series and outlining ways of integrating television series into the classroom using selected clips, screening full episodes, or using an entire series as a text. We then illustrate these methods by discussing ways that television series might be used in a typical introductory course on European politics.

Employability is one of these concepts that polarises opinion. There are those who see it as an integral part of student education and learning, and those who see it as undermining conventional academic study. In this paper, we argue it is a key part of student learning experiences and use a case study of a particular module—'Politics in Action'—to highlight the potential benefits to students. This should be seen in conjunction with the rest of a degree programme, where employability maybe embedded but not prioritised. Student feedback reinforces the potential benefits of prioritising employability in one part of a degree programme, while acknowledging the beneficial spillover into other areas of study. There is, however, potential resource cost in adopting this type of approach to delivering such a bespoke module. It is far from being a conventional module, but the impact and benefits to student learning and understanding are clear.

Different publics have been asked for their opinion about corruption through a variety of survey questions over the past five decades. Notwithstanding their relevance, these items have been developed with different (research) objectives in mind. This article introduces and discusses a new database on corruption surveys. The DATACORR database consists of national and cross-national survey items on perceptions, attitudes, and experiences of corruption and covers 3,050 items from 321 survey rounds, developed by 110 research projects of 83 different institutions around the world, from 1976 to 2019. Two public opinion-centred corruption research approaches have been identified: (a) one addressing conceptualisations of corruption and (b) another focusing on the evaluations individuals make of the impacts of corruption. Our study reveals that survey questions on corruption tend to be more generic and sociotropic. Although there have been attempts to move towards survey items capturing egotropic and specific aspects of corruption until the 2000s, this tendency has reversed more recently, making room for debate on how to advance knowledge in the field.

Romania is characterized in general by poor institutional capacity and low popular trust in public institutions. In this context, it is an unlikely case for an effective stakeholder cooperation in times of crisis. However, this article shows that during the pandemic, the structural vulnerabilities in the public system led to many solutions being delivered through public and private stakeholder cooperation. The health care system engaged with community stakeholders to complement public efforts in managing the pandemic. A consistent institutional approach towards public engagement can compensate for systemic vulnerabilities and adds to societal resilience in times of crisis.

The article analyses the impact of COVID-19 on health and long-term care systems, as well as institutional resilience by applying indicators of preparedness, agility and robustness. The study shows how the weakness of intergovernmental and cross-sectorial coordination instruments, and the particularities of the Spanish health and long-term care sectors, hindered the initial response to the challenges presented by the pandemic. However, after the first tragic wave of the disease, the intensification of cooperation mechanisms between health and social services authorities, as well as the free initiative of long-term care facility managers, corrected these initial errors and reversed the long-term care facilities’ extremely fragile situation.

The COVID-19 pandemic and consequent global travel restrictions created an unprecedented crisis for the tourism industry. Considering that tourism generates about one fifth of the Croatian, the COVID-19 crisis posed a threat not only to companies in tourism, but also to the Croatian economy as a whole. This article examines the interplay of public and private institutions whose aim was to support resilience in tourism and prevent negative spill overs to other sectors. The regional Civil Protection Headquarters and a large hospitality company were analyzed as a part of the resilience assessments. Although both institutions have shown a high level of agility and resilience in their crisis management, this article outlines the deep societal interdependence between the public and private sector in times of global crisis.

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has overwhelmed the Lithuanian healthcare system. In an attempt to meet its emergency situation and mitigate the new challenges, the Government reached out to the private sector, aiming to develop a sustainable cooperation approach in healthcare service provision. The article examines the potential implications for the healthcare system in Lithuania and adaptation paths. The preliminary overview refers to the assumption that the efforts to deliver sustainable service in the healthcare sector were uncoordinated and showed institutional vulnerability in both private and public sectors.

The COVID-19 crisis and countries’ reactions led to analyses about how governance systems influenced the management of the pandemic and how COVID-19 influenced businesses. The concept of institutional resilience transcends these directions of research, but we know little about what it means and how to measure it. This paper proposes an innovative framework to conceptualize and assess institutional resilience based on three organisational traits: preparedness, agility and robustness. This approach provides the opportunity to sequence actions before, during and after the pandemic. This framework will be applied through various cases studies in Europe in the contributions to this symposium.

Iceland’s 360,000-person population has been gradually rebuilding its trust in public institutions after the harsh financial crisis of 2008–2010. The country was once again shaken in 2020; this time by the arrival of COVID-19 with its extreme impact on the country, including its number one sector, tourism, which came to a grinding halt in March 2020. Iceland’s swift response to battle the pandemic garnered headlines around the world for its public–private collaboration with deCODE genetics, which used their deep genetics experience to develop and roll-out screening services and extensive analysis of the virus, thereby changing the trajectory of COVID-19 and permitting an earlier re-opening than most European countries. This article shows how the public–private partnership boosted the nation’s trust in institutions and bolstered the country’s resilience in a time of crisis.