Political theorists have developed well‐defined normative understandings of what constitutes ethical political conduct. Based on democratic theory as well as the demands of practical politics, these understandings prescribe certain types of behaviour and proscribe other types. However, it is unclear to what extent this normative framework has resonance for ordinary citizens. This article demonstrates that attention to politics tends to increase the resonance of this normative framework. The analysis identifies three norms about the holding of public office that are expected to structure citizens' ethical judgments: the avoidance of conflicts of interest; conformity with the law or institutional rules; and the maximisation of the public good. The article assesses the importance of these norms in structuring judgments by means of an experiment embedded in a population survey conducted in Great Britain. The analysis finds that informational cues pertaining to conflict‐of‐interest avoidance only condition responses among the attentive, while information pertaining to law conformity has far wider resonance. This finding has implications for approaches to political ethics focusing on normative considerations that appear to have low salience for much of the general public.

Play languages (also known as language games or ludlings) represent a special type of language use that is well known to shed useful light on linguistic structure. This paper explores a syllable transposition play language in Zenzontepec Chatino that provides evidence for the segmental inventory, syllable structure, the limits of the phonological word, the prosodic status of inflectional formatives, and the autonomy of tone, all of which aligns with independent phonological evidence in the language. While recent theoretical and cross-linguistic studies have questioned the nature, and even the validity, of constituents such as the phonological word, the syllable, and the onset, this study provides an example of a language with strongly manifested phonological constituents. Following the International Year of Indigenous Languages, the study also highlights the importance of in-depth analysis of less-studied languages for linguistic theory, typology, and language maintenance or reclamation for communities.

Food banks have grown substantially in Canada since the 1980s but little is known about patterns or predictors of engagement including frequency or duration of service use. This study examined food bank program data from a large food bank organization in Vancouver, Canada, finding that between January 1992 and June 2017, at least 116,963 individuals made over 2 million food bank visits. The majority of members were engaged for a short time and came for relatively few visits, but 9% of members engaged in longer-term episodic or ongoing usage over several years, accounting for 65% of all visits. Results from cluster and regression analyses found that documented health and mobility challenges, larger household size, primary income source, and older age were predictors of higher frequency and duration of service usage. Findings add to growing critical examinations of the “emergency food system” highlighting the need for better understanding of the broader social policies influencing food bank use.

Despite the normative origins of our discipline, political scientists often embrace our role as objective scholars, to the point of teaching our students to undertake research without also helping them to become public-spirited citizens. This essay argues that this restrained approach is inadequate to maintain political science’s relevance in an era characterized by heightened partisan polarization, rising authoritarianism, and democratic backsliding. To help our students sustain democratic systems of government going forward, political scientists must not only recognize our normative roots, but must also extend our normative agenda to a reinvigorated civic engagement pedagogy that is timely, intersectional, and internationalized. In short, how and what we teach our students is the key to our discipline’s relevance in difficult political times.

This paper investigates what kinds of social networks nudge volunteering by applying social network analysis. Unique Japanese data with various social network variables are used to explore the association between formal and informal social networks and volunteering. The results show that “attending meetings of neighborhood associations” and “enrollment in a membership association,” which involve forms of formal social networks, are positively correlated with the probability of both “any volunteering” and five kinds of volunteering. “Frequency of meals with friends,” an indicator of informal social networks, has statistical significance for volunteering. Notably, friendships, even if meals are infrequent, are enough to lead to volunteering opportunities. The author thus concludes that greater social participation can be fostered by promoting not only organizational assistance but also friendships.

The past decade has seen significant advances in our understanding of the early modern reception of 1 Enoch, thanks to the pioneering work of Ariel Hessayon, Annette Yoshiko Reed, and Gabriele Boccaccini among others. Building on their research, this article reconstructs the dynamics that generated interest in 1 Enoch in early modernity, focussing on the reception of the Syncellus fragments published in 1606 by Joseph Scaliger. To do so, it offers three observations. Firstly, it expands our understanding of the nature of interest in 1 Enoch prior to 1606. Secondly, it corrects a common misinterpretation of Scaliger’s comments on the Syncellus fragments. Finally, it reconstructs three trends which arose after Scaliger and which functioned to perpetuate interest in 1 Enoch. This account should interest both scholars of Enoch’s afterlives and historians of scholarship for the light it sheds on the development of early modern biblical criticism.

Is it possible to rescue the concepts of ‘the people’ and popular sovereignty from their use and abuse at the hands of right-wing populist politics? In this article I look at two competing challenges to populist ideas of popular sovereignty. Underpinning a liberal critique of populism is a constrained view of democracy that either rejects any ideal of popular sovereignty altogether or reserves popular sovereignty for hypothetical moments of constitutional justification. The second view, which I call democratic pluralism, defends a dispersed view of popular sovereignty in which the people are conceived of as both inclusive and as ruling. In conclusion, I argue that this second option offers the most adequate answer to the populist challenge.

Recently, Will Kymlicka reconsidered his multicultural liberal nationalism in response to empirical findings on minority–majority relations in multicultural settings. The empirical findings are disheartening, demonstrating that majorities judge various minorities as less deserving of access to social rights and recognition as legitimate agents making political claims, leading to membership penalties. These results led Kymlicka to recalibrate his normative position into multicultural nationalism. In my response, I will assess Kymlicka's renewed normative position according to a moderate critique of methodological nationalism. I will argue that if multicultural nationalism aims to promote inclusive membership for immigrants by transforming the existing prominent and exclusive stories of peoplehood, then it should avoid relying on fixed, methodologically nationalist epistemic presuppositions.

Extreme right-wing violence has resulted in an intense academic debate on how democratic actors can respond to movement on the extreme right. This article explores how various types of CSOs perceive their role, interest, and willingness when it comes to counteracting right-wing extremism. Building on a theoretical framework that makes visible a variety of CSO responses and differences between types of CSOs, the results show that CSOs view themselves as having a watchdog role in relation to right-wing extremism. However, CSOs place the principal responsibility of response to right-wing extremism outside organized civil society in the hands of politicians, citizens, and the media. In addition, not all CSOs are willing to respond in the same way or to the same extent. Humanitarian and social service organizations are more inclined to engage in dialogue and protest compared with sports and recreation organizations and culture organizations. The article concludes by discussing the notion that bridging organizations may be more willing to respond to right-wing extremism and to use dialogue and deliberation compared to bonding organizations.

The 60th anniversary of the Department of Government at the University of Essex provides an opportunity to reflect on its many achievements and why these have been possible. This article argues that research excellence is a collective outcome that cannot be reduced to individuals. Research institutions tend to be successful because they manage to create productive environments, which can make individual scholars better and create synergies. The thesis is backed up by examples from the history of the department and more general research on the role of environments for research. The article considers possible insights with regard to present challenges to academic institutions, why productive environments can be difficult to maintain, and how we can try to nurture them.

This study examines how virtual spaces facilitated by NPOs are becoming catalysts for personal growth and collective strength. The primary finding indicates that social interaction among peers in an online support group tends to foster personal growth and development. This result is based on a grounded theory analysis of interview data from an online peer group and an interpretation of the data using symbolic interactionism. The study showcases how engagement in these spaces can lead to meaningful outreach and support for vulnerable populations, particularly single mothers. This research contributes to the understanding of collective behavior and its impact on individuals within a virtual group, shedding light on the dynamics of online support communities.

The development of generative artificial intelligence raises justified concerns about the possibility of undermining trust in democratic processes, especially elections. Deep fakes are often considered one of the particularly dangerous forms of media manipulation. Subsequent research confirms that they contribute to strengthening the sense of uncertainty among citizens and negatively affect the information environment. The aim of this study is to analyse the use of deep fakes in 11 countries in 2023, in the context of elections and to indicate potential consequences for future electoral processes, in particular with regard to the significant number of elections in 2024. We argue that a so-called “information apocalypse” emerges mainly from exaggeratedly alarmist voices that make it difficult to shape responsible narratives and may have the features of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Thus, we suggest to use the term “pollution” instead and improve scientific and journalistic discourse that might be a precondition for reducing threats that touch on social reactions to deep fakes and their potential.

Party systems diverge in their levels of nationalisation. While in some countries parties obtain similar levels of electoral support in all districts, in others parties get very asymmetric electoral shares across districts. The distributive consequences of this have been seldom studied. The argument tested here is that when political parties have nationalised electorates they have stronger incentives to provide social policies that spread benefits all over the territory. This argument is tested in 22 OECD democracies for the period 1980−2006. The results show that, regardless of the electoral system in place, there is a positive relation between party system nationalisation and social spending.

Our article sheds light on two enduring debates within the cooperative literature: the degeneration thesis and the spillover thesis. While the degeneration thesis suggests cooperatives are doomed to failure, the spillover thesis suggests otherwise, contending that the experience of democratic control furthers social change beyond the cooperative itself. By turning to critical theory, we are able to bring new insights into these conversations. The early Frankfurt School placed a primacy on the subjectivity of social actors, arguing that capitalism serves to impact the consciousness, rationality, and depth-psychology of subjects, acculturating them to market societies. By exploring this in conjunction with the literature on cooperatives, we are able to add weight to the degeneration thesis and to demand further concessions from advocates of the spillover thesis. Ultimately, the article stresses the lack of importance placed to date on subjectivity within cooperative studies and argues that this needs to be remedied.

This essay provides meta-ethical foundations for an approach to political realism. The foundations appeal to the kind of non-objectivity of morality involved in taking a critical and reflective perspective on our own moral and political outlooks. The essay argues that the distinctive methodology of an approach to political realism can be derived from these non-objectivist foundations. This methodology requires political philosophy to be more critical and reflective than it usually is, for it to be more deeply engaged with history, sociology, and other human sciences, and for it to look less like applied moral philosophy.

How do politicians attribute responsibility for good and poor policy outcomes across multiple stakeholders in a policy field where they themselves can affect service provision? Such ‘diffusion’ decisions are crucial to understand the political calculations underlying the allocation of blame and credit by office‐holders. We study this issue using a between‐subjects survey experiment fielded among local politicians in Norway (N = 1073). We find that local politicians attribute responsibility for outcomes in primary education predominantly to school personnel (regardless of whether performance is good or bad) and do not engage in local party‐political blame games. However, we show that local politicians are keen to attribute responsibility for poor outcomes to higher levels of government, especially when these are unaligned with the party of the respondent. These findings suggest that vertical partisan blame‐shifting prevails over horizontal partisan blame games in settings with a political consensus culture.

This article uses Arash Abizadeh to illustrate the appeal and difficulties of the claim that random selection is a more democratic way to select a legislature than election. It agrees with Abizadeh that representative democracy cannot be reduced to the right of voters to choose their legislators. However, it challenges his view that elections are inherently inegalitarian because they enable voters to discriminate unfairly among electoral candidates and his assimilation of gyroscopic to descriptive representation. Finally, the article highlights the difficulties of justifying random selection while rejecting election on egalitarian grounds. It therefore concludes that democratic equality requires more, not less, attention to the ethics of voting and to the conceptual, moral, and political dimensions of citizens’ claims on elected office.

Statecraft, under democratic principles in Tanzania in particular, is often considered as a total heritage from former colonial masters. Julius Kambarage Nyerere (1922–1999) disputed this by advancing an African theory of democracy, articulated to inform modern statecraft in Tanzania. His theory advances a form of democracy characterized by a merger of some practices from the African past and others from the western world. In this way, he articulated the centrality of democracy in organizing public affairs without compromising its African origin but also acknowledging the influence of other democratic cultures in the modern organization of a polity. This article articulates Nyerere's contribution to African democratic discourse and the extent to which his theory of democracy is relevant in the organization of contemporary politics and democratic trajectories in Tanzania and Africa in particular.

Italy was the first Western country to be severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Within it, immigrants have played an important role as essential workers and throughout solidarity initiatives. The present article is based on 64 in-depth interviews with immigrants who engaged in solidarity actions directed toward the immigrant population and the host society during the COVID-19 pandemic. Analytically, it emerged that through solidaristic initiatives, immigrants articulated what we called ‘claims of recognition.’ Recognition here is considered in both its individual form, as interpersonal acceptance and esteem for single immigrants, and its collective form, as the social regard of immigrant groups as constituents of Italian society. Despite being perhaps 'elementary,' these claims aim to fight forms of both non-recognition and mis-recognition that are pervasive in Italy and aim to transform the symbolic 'fabric' of this country.