The disciplinary focus on explanatory research designs leads researchers to concentrate on differences between political systems to maximise variation in independent and dependent variables. This causes a bias in comparative analysis towards cross-spatial differences and a neglect of similarities and change that occurs in most or all political systems invariably and simultaneously. The article identifies the main reason for this bias is the misled perception that a strong focus on explanation is necessary for a discipline to establish itself as scientific. The article debates the consequences of such a distortion towards differences in a world in which interdependence and diffusion create convergence. It thus proposes a stronger role for (1) descriptive analysis, (2) cross-temporal explanation, and (3) ‘Most Different Systems Designs’ as ways to address parallel change, re-establish the balance of focus between differences and similarities, and control for diffusion effects.

Political science in Europe has been shaped by a great variety of national academic traditions and university systems, its relationship to neighbouring disciplines, and contending meta-theoretical approaches. In addition, since World War II, major external influences have come mainly from the US. Against this background, the special role of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) is briefly discussed and evaluated. The conclusions point to some significant differences in emphasis between European and American political science and highlight the increasing relevance of such differences in the European but potentially also worldwide context.

In this article, I question whether the widely endorsed functional demos views—like the “all affected interests” and “all subjected” approaches—adequately measure legitimacy in democratic inclusion. I argue that these views fall short of this task and propose an alternative criterion for evaluating electoral rights allocation. The “permanent disenfranchisement condition” asserts that electoral regulations leading to involuntary, permanent disenfranchisement are undemocratic. This condition challenges traditional exclusions based on factors like denizenship or mental illness. Age-based or residency requirements, however, remain permissible, as they do not imply inherent unfitness for political participation. Additionally, I introduce the “democratic ethos proviso,” which is less stringent and failure to fulfill it is less consequential. It stipulates that electoral regulations should be justifiable with reference to the specificities of the relevant democratic ethos.

Concerns about the use of online political microtargeting (OPM) by campaigners have arisen since the Cambridge Analytica scandal hit the international political arena. In addition to providing conceptual clarity on OPM and explore the use of such techniques in Europe, this paper seeks to empirically disentangle the differing behaviours of campaigners when they message citizens through microtargeted rather than non-targeted campaigning. More precisely, I hypothesise that campaigners use negative campaigning and are more diverse in terms of topics when they use OPM. To investigate whether these expectations hold true, I use text-as-data techniques to analyse an original dataset of 4,091 political Facebook Ads during the last national elections in Austria, Italy, Germany and Sweden. Results show that while microtargeted ads might indeed be more thematically diverse, there does not seem to be a significant difference to non-microtargeted ads in terms of negativity. In conclusion, I discuss the implications of these findings for microtargeted campaigns and how future research could be conducted.

Accounting for regional divides in British electoral behaviour during the 1980s has proved controversial. Critics have argued that, once individual characteristics are taken into account, regional context is unimportant. Supporters of the regional divide have pointed to the connection between economic conditions and voting, but have been unable to show direct links between local economies and voters' decisions. The paper employs new data to examine the controversy. Voters at the 1992 General Election are shown to judge their regional economies, and to act on those judgements, even when their personal positions are controlled for.

Increasingly, simulation-based teaching and learning is finding a place within politics and international relations (IR) programmes. The majority of literature on this style of teaching and learning has positioned it as both an aid to content delivery and as a response to the many challenges facing contemporary higher education. Little guidance is given, however, to the practical considerations of using simulations as a component of assessment or as informing assessed tasks. This article draws upon the experience of the authors in adapting the well-established Model United Nations (MUN) simulation programme for delivery as an assessed module at a British university. This has involved balancing institutional teaching, assessment and validation requirements with the successful simulation of diplomatic practice. The article introduces the MUN simulation and explores the extant pedagogic literature encouraging the use of simulation-based learning in IR curricula, before moving on to provide an overview of the rationale for the various decisions the authors have made in adapting the simulation for delivery as an assessed curriculum component. The article asserts the value of introducing assessed simulations within IR coursework and provides guidance on how student performance in pedagogic simulations might best be assessed.

This article proposes a critical discussion of an increasingly influential strand of contemporary democratic theory that attempts to justify majoritarian institutions on the grounds that they are the most adequate “epistemic” means for discovering and implementing an objective standard of normative truth. The analysis is divided in two parts. In the first I show that the appeal to such epistemic standards is unnecessary because it is possible to justify majority rule on the “purely procedural” grounds that it is the best way of instantiating the values of freedom (as consent) and equality (as impartiality). In the second part I suggest that the appeal to epistemic standards is also undesirable because it conflicts with three key democratic values: autonomy (as self-government), inclusion (as lack of discrimination in terms of political competence), and pluralism (as fair representation of conflicting interests within the political process).

In recent years, there has been an increasing concern about non-governmental development organisations’ (NGDOs) sustainability especially in countries including Ghana that have transitioned into lower-middle-income status. The effect has been donor withdrawal and funding cuts for NGDOs. This presents opportunities and challenges for NGDOs in their attempt to mobilise alternative funding routes in ensuring their sustainability. Drawing on secondary literature and semi-structured interviews with fifty-seven respondents from national NGDOs, government, donors and corporate organisations, this article documents and expands our understanding of the different typologies of philanthropic institutions in Ghana as potential alternative funding routes for NGDOs. It finds that a weak enabling environment including the absence of a regulatory framework and fiscal incentives for domestic resource mobilisation stands to affect the potential of philanthropic institutions as alternative funding routes for NGDOs’ sustainability.

Diffuse support for democracy, as captured in mass surveys, tends to be treated as impervious to regime performance. Such a finding is often presented as confirmation of the basic distinction between ‘diffuse’ and ‘specific’ support as proposed by David Easton. This study argues that this line of argument stems from an incomplete reading of important aspects of Easton's theorisation about the relationship between system outputs and diffuse support. Using multilevel models, evidence from more than 100 surveys in close to 80 countries, and different measures of democratic support, it is shown that government effectiveness is the strongest macro‐level predictor of such support. In democratic regimes, government effectiveness, understood as the quality of policy‐making formulation and implementation, is linked to higher levels of support for democracy. Furthermore, in non‐democracies, effectiveness and support for democracy are, under some model specifications, negatively related.

Drawing on attribution theory and expectancy violations theory, this paper examines the relevance of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in the nonprofit domain. For this task, an analysis of the effects of positive and negative CSR performance on perceived trustworthiness was conducted for nonprofit and for for-profit organizations. The findings of a survey-based experiment indicate that in the nonprofit domain, positive CSR performance does not significantly affect trustworthiness, whereas negative CSR performance significantly destroys trustworthiness. Since negative CSR performance is the result of irresponsible behavior, the study’s findings suggest that CSR in the nonprofit domain should be centered on “avoiding bad.”