Since the Golden Age of the Welfare State ended, the male‐breadwinner family model traditionally supported by conservative parties has been put under pressure. Familialism appears to be no longer attractive to a changing, more volatile constituency. By comparing four different European countries – namely, Denmark, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom – this work investigates the evolution of the conservative parties’ family policy positions in the post‐Fordist era (1990s–2010s). The article has two goals. First, relying on a multidimensional theoretical framework where both social consumption and social investment policy instruments are at stake, it probes whether conservatives have switched their positions by backing de‐familialism and thus the dual‐earner family model. Second, it explains policy position change or stability over time and cross‐country differences through a multicausal analytical framework.

The content analysis of party manifestos shows that, in the post‐Fordist era, the conservative parties have supported ‘optional familialism’, thus upholding both familiarizing and de‐familiarizing measures. However, such positions are not static. In the 1990s, support for familialism was higher while, since the 2000s, there has been a constant, increasing backing of de‐familialism. While the shift is evident for all the parties, cross‐country differences remain. The comparative historical analysis has pointed out that the specific ‘optional familialism’ positions taken by the conservative parties over time result from the interaction of constituency‐oriented, institutional, contextual and political factors.

Understanding representation is central to politics. Numerous studies assess under which conditions politicians share citizens’ ideological preferences. However, under which conditions bureaucrats share citizens’ ideological preferences has not been systematically studied. Yet, bureaucratic preferences shape policy outcomes. Our paper thus studies why bureaucrats are more right or left‐wing than citizens in some countries and points of time, yet not others. We theorize that political ideologies of past incumbents shape this variation. Incumbents can select ideologically aligned bureaucrats and socialize bureaucrats into ideological preferences; moreover, prospective bureaucrats may self‐select into ideologically aligned governments. As bureaucratic tenure exceeds political tenure, this politicization has lasting effects. Survey data from 87 countries supports this argument: bureaucrats are more left‐leaning than citizens in countries with longer prior rule by economically left‐wing governments, and more right‐wing in countries with more authoritarian pasts. This suggests that incumbents continue to shape the ideological preferences of bureaucrats after leaving office.

Despite some prominent critics, deliberative democrats tend to be optimistic about the potential of deliberative mini‐publics. However, the problem with current practices is that mini‐publics are typically used by officials on an ad hoc basis and that their policy impacts remain vague. Mini‐publics seem especially hard to integrate into representative decision making. There are a number of reasons for this, especially prevailing ideas of representation and accountability as well as the contestatory character of representative politics. This article argues that deliberative mini‐publics should be regarded as one possible way of improving the epistemic quality of representative decision making and explores different institutional designs through which deliberative mini‐publics could be better integrated into representative institutions. The article considers arrangements which institutionalise the use of mini‐publics; involve representatives in deliberations; motivate public interactions between mini‐publics and representatives; and provide opportunities to ex post scrutiny or suspensive veto powers for mini‐publics. The article analyses prospects and problems of these measures, and considers their applicability in different contexts of representative politics.

Natural disasters can affect individuals’ views about the environment, especially when these events are extreme and experienced by people directly (locally). In one of the first comprehensive and systematic attempts, we explore whether a similar relationship exists transnationally – a cross‐border effect stemming from environmental disasters abroad on public opinion ‘at home’. Spatial analyses present robust evidence that people's environmental salience attitudes are substantially driven by disaster‐related deaths in nearby countries. It follows that environmental disasters cannot be treated as isolated incidents within state borders, but they rather have far‐reaching, transnational consequences on public opinion and, potentially, policy. Accordingly, this research adds to our understanding of environmental politics, public opinion, natural disasters and diffusion effects.

When judging how ‘fair’ voting rules are, a fundamental criterion used by both scholars and politicians is their ability or inability to produce proportional results – that is, the extent parties’ seat distribution after the elections accurately reflects their vote shares. How about citizens? Do citizens care about how proportional the outcome is? Or do they judge the outcome solely on the basis of how well (or poorly) their party performed? Taking advantage of a uniquely designed survey experiment, this article investigates the causal effect of proportionality on voter support for voting rules in four countries: Austria, England, Ireland and Sweden. The results show that proportionality drives support for the voting rules not above, but beyond party performance. There is little cross‐country variation, which suggests that proportionality is appreciated in different contexts with little status quo bias. These findings have important implications for our understanding of the causal mechanisms linking electoral rules to voter support.

Does coalition formation have a causal effect on the perceived ideological distance between the coalition members? Observational research shows that voters typically think of parties that form a coalition government as more ideologically similar than those that do not, holding everything else constant. Their many qualities aside, the existing studies are not able to establish a causal relationship between coalition formation and changing perceptions. It is quite possible that voters are reacting to concurrent changes in parties' stated policy and not the coalition information itself. In this paper, I present two survey experiments that isolate the difference between telling voters that two parties can cooperate and telling them that they cannot. In both experiments, I find evidence supporting the theory of coalition heuristics.

Recent cross‐national comparative studies have found no effect of countries’ macroeconomic performances on trust in national political institutions, once political explanations (most notably corruption) are taken into account. Although political trust is not determined by the comparison of national economic performance to other countries, it is argued in this article that it is affected by comparisons to their own past performance. In a multilevel, fixed effects analysis of Eurobarometer data (21 waves in 15 European Union Member States between 1999 and 2011) the extent to which within‐country variations in economic performance affect political trust longitudinally is tested. Three major conclusions are reached. First, within‐country, longitudinal changes in performance (growth, deficits, unemployment and inflation) affect political trust. Second, the impact of macroeconomic performance is stronger among the lower educated. Third, even in times of economic duress, budgetary deficits tend to undermine political trust.

Regulating interest groups’ access to decision makers constitutes a key dimension of legitimate and accountable systems of government. The European Union explicitly links lobbying regulation with the democratic credentials of its supranational system of governance and proposes transparency as a solution to increase legitimacy and regulate private actors’ participation in policy making. This lobbying regulation regime consists of a Transparency Register that conditions access to decision makers upon joining it and complying with its information disclosure requirements. The extent to which transparency‐based regulatory regimes are successful in ensuring effective regulation of targeted actors and in being recognised as a legitimate instrument of governance constitutes a key empirical question. Therefore, the study asks: Do stakeholders perceive the transparency‐based EU lobbying regulation regime to be a legitimate form of regulatory governance? The study answers by building on a classic model of targeted transparency and proposes perceived regulatory effectiveness and sustainability as two key dimensions on which to evaluate the legitimacy of the Register. The arguments are tested on a new dataset reporting the evaluations of 1,374 stakeholders on the design and performance of the EU lobbying regulation regime. The findings describe a transparency regime that scores low in perceived effectiveness and moderate to low in sustainability. Citizens criticise the quality of information disclosed and the Register's performance as a transparency instrument. The Register did not effectively bridge the information gap between the public and interest groups about supranational lobbying. In terms of sustainability, interest organisations appreciate the systemic benefits of transparency, but identify few organisation‐level benefits. Organisations that are policy insiders incur more transparency costs so they instrumentally support transparency only insofar it suits their lobbying strategies and does not threaten their position. Insiders support including additional categories of organisations in the Register's regulatory remit but not more types of interactions with policy makers. They support an imperfect regulatory status quo to which they have adapted but lack incentives to support increased transparency and information disclosure. Targeted transparency proves an ineffective approach to regulating interest groups’ participation in EU policy making, constituting a suboptimal choice for ensuring transparent, accountable and legitimate supranational lobbying.

Social media platforms offer MPs the opportunity to directly signal attention to their local voters in the constituency. And while previous research has linked the strategic use of such local cues in social media posts to electoral motives, we know very little about their effectiveness. In this study, we trace the impact of local cues in social media posts in three steps. First, we revisit the claim that MPs are electorally motivated in their use of local cues by analysing 1,316,458 Tweets by Swiss and German national MPs (2009–2019). Second, we use survey experiment data (N = 16,597) to gauge whether voters reward local cues in social media posts with a higher likelihood of voting for a politician. Lastly, we investigate whether MPs' use of explicit local cues in Tweets leads them to obtain more preference votes in Swiss National Council elections (2011–2019). The overall image that emerges from these results is that while politicians use local cues particularly when campaigning, they are not directly electorally rewarded: both the results based on experimental and observational data do not provide evidence for the idea that adding local cues to social media posts comes with an electoral advantage.

Public support for Brexit has declined since the 2016 referendum. We argue that part of this decline is due to cohort replacement where many older voters (who support Brexit) have passed away, while younger voters (who oppose Brexit) have entered the electorate. Using a series of original YouGov surveys from 2016, 2018, 2020 and 2022, each representative of the UK electorate, we first demonstrate the large and stable differences in Brexit support between younger and older voters. Next, we employ demographic decomposition calculations to estimate that cohort replacement alone accounts for approximately one third of the decline in aggregate Brexit support in just 6 years (with two thirds of the decline being explained by within‐cohort changes). Furthermore, by combining our data on Brexit support with Office for National Statistics cohort projections up to 2030, we derive testable hypotheses about the pressure that cohort replacement will continue to put on Brexit support over the next decade across a wide range of potential scenarios. Altogether, our study demonstrates the powerful role that cohort replacement plays in shaping British (and European) politics in the post‐Brexit world.

Stagnating incomes have been a widespread concern in advanced democracies over the past decades. However, despite a turn towards dynamic frameworks, the consequences of stagnation on political support for the welfare state are still unclear. This study introduces the distinction between ‘absolute’ and ‘relative’ income stagnation – that is, experiencing stagnating incomes over time (without reference to other groups) and in relative comparison to other groups – and explores how they shape citizens’ attitudes towards redistribution. I argue that absolute and relative stagnation have opposite effects on redistributive preferences. Contrary to political economy theories, I expect that low absolute income growth reduces demand for redistribution, because it reduces voters’ ability and willingness to afford welfare state policies. Support for this hypothesis is provided in an empirical analysis that combines novel estimates for absolute and relative income stagnation with longitudinal survey data on redistribution preferences in 14 advanced democracies between 1985 and 2018. The distinction between absolute and relative experiences has broader implications for comparative politics research and might contribute to explain why income stagnation and rising inequality have not led to higher political demand for redistributive welfare policy.

Oxidative stress is an important pathomechanism in psoriasis, and the oxidative balance score (OBS) serves as a standardised metric for assessing systemic oxidative status, but its association with psoriasis is unclear. This study included 18 023 adults from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to investigate the relationship between OBS and psoriasis. After using a complex sampling weighting method, we performed multi-model logistic regression and stratified analysis with OBS as the exposure and psoriasis as the outcome for the primary analysis. Restricted cubic spline (RCS) plots were used to evaluate potential non-linear associations between OBS and psoriasis. In addition, we performed replication analyses using two 24-h dietary records data as a sensitivity test to ensure robustness of the results. Multi-model logistic regression analyses revealed no statistically meaningful link between OBS and psoriasis prevalence when accounting for all confounders (P > 0·05), but in stratified analyses, OBS demonstrated a significant association with reduced risk of psoriasis in individuals aged 60–80 years (OR = 0·27–0·35, P < 0·05). As part of the overall OBS, moderate dietary OBS demonstrated an association with reduced psoriasis risk in 60- to 80-year-olds (OR = 0·39–0·43, P < 0·05). Lifestyle OBS (LOBS) indicates a significant negative correlation with psoriasis risk among the ‘Other Hispanic’ group. (Q3 OR = 0·23, P < 0·05). The RCS showed a non-linear relationship between LOBS and psoriasis (non-linear P = 0·013). This study provides the first systematic confirmation of an association between OBS and a reduced risk of psoriasis in elderly populations and specific ethnic groups. These findings offer new insights and directions for the prevention and treatment of psoriasis.

The degree to which different social groups get along is a key indicator of the cohesiveness of a society. This study examines perceptions of social cohesion among Europeans and explains variations in those perceptions by considering the separate and combined effects of economic strain and institutional trust. Analyses were conducted with the 27 member countries of the EU based on the Eurobarometer 74.1 on poverty and social exclusion conducted in 2010. Results show that individuals living in households experiencing economic strain perceive social cohesion to be weaker than their less economically hard‐pressed counterparts. By contrast, individuals trusting their political institutions perceived there to be higher levels of cohesion. Furthermore, institutional trust substantially moderates the negative relationship between economic strain and perceptions of cohesion. These results are robust to various model specifications. Moreover, extending the analysis revealed that this moderating effect held when considering social relations between the poor and rich and between different racial and ethnic groups. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.

Party identification is a well‐documented force in political behaviour. However, the vast majority of work on partisanship considers only its positive side, rather than recognizing that partisan identities may also have a negative component. Recent work has shown that negative partisanship has important effects, such as reinforcing partisan leanings, directing strategic behaviour and increasing the rate of straight‐ticket voting. This study takes a step back to explore the sources of such orientations, rather than the effects. Specifically, it considers whether the electoral system context contributes to the presence of negative affective orientations towards parties. Using data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, we examine the influence of factors related to electoral system features and consider whether their influence is moderated by voter sophistication. Data reveal significant variation in the rate of negative partisanship across countries, and that these differences are related to the electoral system context in which voters are making decisions. We also find some evidence that these effects are moderated by sophistication. This work adds to our understanding of the role of affect in political behaviour, as well as the impact that country‐level institutional factors can have upon the relationship between voters and parties.

Netanyahu’s cabinet lost its majority in the Knesset towards the end of 1998 and Netanyahu’s position as the Likud leader and its candidate for premiership in the 1999 elections was challenged. This led to a number of changes in Netanyahu I. Shaul Amor of Likud joined the cabinet as a Minister without portfolio on 18 January 1999. The Knesset approved his nomination on 20 January. On the evening of 23 January 1999, Netanyahu decided to sack Defense Minister Yitzhak Mordechai. This followed Mordechai’s negotiations with the leaders of the new Centre Party. (Later, Mordechai was chosen as Centre’s leader and its candidate for the premiership.) Mordechai’s term came officially to an end on 25 January. A day later, Netanyahu nominated Moshe Arens of Likud as his newMinister of Defense. The Knesset approved the nomination on 27 January. On 23 February, Netanyahu nominated Meir Shitrit of Likud to the post of Finance Minister. The Knesset approved this nomination on the following day.

In January, Home Secretary Otto Schily announced a thorough reform of German citizenship laws which would enable a majority of immigrants to obtain German citizenship without requiring them to give up their original citizenship. CDU/CSU reacted highly critically and mobilized against this proposal by collecting signatures for a petition; the Hesse Christian Democrats, who faced a Land election on 7 February, were in the forefront. The campaign against the intended introduction of dual citizenship, which was not without xenophobic undertones, was widely considered to have contributed to the bitter defeat of the ruling red-green Hesse Land government and marked the beginning of a series of electoral defeats for the new red-green federal government. Whereas the SPD could marginally increase its share of the vote, the Greens lost 4.4 percent. As a result, a Christian-Liberal government was formed and Chancellor Schröder unilaterally sought a compromise with the opposition over the issue of citizenship. Initially, this led to harsh reactions from the Green coalition partner, who had, in the end, to accept that the majority in the Bundesrat required a compromise which restricted dual citizenship to German-born children of immigrants, who will have to make a choice once they reach the age of 23.

Research shows that electoral systems, gender quotas and a country's socio‐economic development affect women's legislative representation (WLR). Less attention is paid to the effects of the rise of regional political arenas and multilevel politics on WLR. Due to less costly and competitive electoral campaigns, women can have easier access to regional legislatures. We argue that this relationship is mitigated by the distribution of competences between the different levels of the political system and that decentralization's effect on WLR at the regional level is dependent on the regions’ political power. To test this, we use an original dataset on WLR in 383 regional parliaments in 19 European countries from 1970 to 2018. Results of the three‐level models show that more political authority vested into regions leads to a lower level of WLR in the legislatures of the more politically powerful regions in comparison with not only the regions possessing less authority but also with the national parliament. Possible explanations for this effect, such as the attractiveness of these positions to the mostly male political elite and, consequently, increased costs and competitiveness of electoral campaigns, are suggested.