What are the long-term legacies of authoritarian repression on civil society? While much research has focused on high-intensity repression, we examine the more pervasive, low-intensity repression characteristic of many authoritarian regimes. We argue that repression’s effects vary by generation, reducing civic engagement among those who came of age during the authoritarian period but not among younger generations who either only lived their childhood under the regime or were children and grew up under democracy. Using data from around 140,000 individual surveys conducted between 1989 and 2017, we find that cohorts who reached adulthood during the Franco regime consistently exhibit lower civic engagement than those who came of age in democratic Spain. We show evidence consistent with the main results from complementary analyses using local-level data on repression. These findings contribute to the literature on authoritarian legacies, emphasizing the generational and contextual variability of their effects on civil society.

Despite the wealth of research on how education affects political participation, there are few studies that successfully identify the effects of different types of education or different educational tracks. In this article, using a regression discontinuity (RD) design, we present evidence on how electoral participation is affected by pursuing a general (academic) versus a vocational programme in upper secondary education. These two pathways represent a fundamental educational differentiation in most European countries. By exploiting Swedish register data and the admission process for upper secondary education, we provide robust support for causal inference. In contrast to previous research, we do not find positive effects from attending a general programme on voter turnout. In fact, in our RD analysis, our estimates suggest negative effects. This analysis focuses on students who apply for general and vocational programmes – a group with average academic skills. The negative effects appear related to that these students perform poorly in general programmes and risk dropping out. Furthermore, in a population-level analysis relying on within-family comparisons, we predominantly find null effects on turnout of attending a general programme, compared to a vocational one. We conclude that there are no universal positive effects of starting a general rather than a vocational secondary education – and that effects can turn negative for students who start an education that is too demanding. This finding implies that it is important to design secondary education such that it matches the abilities of different students, not only for labour market prospects, but also for their political inclusion.

This paper traces and assesses the trajectories of democratic innovations (DIs) in Germany across levels of governance and over time since 1990, providing novel and original data. We focus on three types of DIs that have been applied in Germany: direct democratic instruments, participatory budgeting, and deliberative mini-publics (DMPs). DIs proliferated differently across the different levels of governance (local, state, and federal), with shifting peaks in popularity and differing evolutions in process design and regulations. Going beyond description, this paper discusses the trajectories of DIs by applying a theoretical framework based, firstly, on Elstub and Escobar’s concept of DIs as providing opportunities for citizens (in participation, deliberation, and influence) and, secondly, on Warren’s system-oriented approach on democratic functions (these being empowered inclusion, collective will-formation, and collective decision-making). This framework provides a useful tool for analysing how the trajectories of DIs in Germany have affected citizens’ opportunities. Combined, these trajectories show a movement towards opportunities for inclusive participation, deliberation, and will-formation of a few citizens in DMPs, rather than opportunities for empowered participation or influence on political agendas and decisions.

The political participation of Black women has important consequences for electoral outcomes in the US, yet little is known about whether and how affect (both negative and positive) influences this group’s engagement in American politics. Despite the prevalent stereotype that Black women are “angry,” scholarly exploration of the effects of the emotions of these women is rare. In this paper, we highlight a gap in theories that center on Black women and argue that survey question wording about affect may impact how Black women express positive or negative emotions in relation to their political behavior. Using 2016 and 2020 CMPS data, we find support for our expectations. This project highlights the importance of group-specific, intersectional theories and the potential limitations to our understanding of how affect influences political participation.

Research on the relationship between inequality and political engagement has yielded varying conclusions. Some studies suggest that inequality fosters political action, while others indicate the opposite, and some find no significant connections. This study demonstrates that individuals’ reactions to inequality are influenced by their attribution of the causes of low income. Based on a survey of over 3,700 residents in Hong Kong, a region known for its high levels of inequality, this research finds that blame attribution significantly affects intentions to participate in collective action. Individuals often attribute income inequality to three types of factors: structural, fatalistic, and individualistic. Those who attribute inequality to structural factors are more likely to engage in collective and disruptive actions, whereas those who attribute it to personal factors are less likely to participate. Consequently, reducing inequality can contribute to social stability by decreasing the potential for collective action.

Digital technologies provide a novel environment for political activities and, more specifically, for interactions between citizens and political actors. The scholarly literature on these topics is flourishing. On the one hand, studies of political communication emphasise the changing nature of election campaigns and the reshaped relationship between leaders and supporters. On the other hand, the literature on political parties examines the organisational implications of such a digital shift in more detail. Against this backdrop, this study investigates the opinions and participatory attitudes of party members towards the new digital participation opportunities that their party organisations provide. To do so, we rely on original individual survey data. More specifically, we will use data derived from a survey administered to Partito Democratico members in Italy at the beginning of 2022 (approximately 4000 respondents). Precisely, we aim to identify the profiles of party members according to their (degree of) digital activities by controlling for variables such as length of membership, levels of intraparty activism, and evaluation of intraparty democracy. Moreover, we investigate the changing relationship between members and their party organisations in the new digital ecosystem.

Media attention to policing has brought a proliferation of narratives seeking to contextualize incidents of police violence. Here, we test whether exposure to such narratives shift Americans’ opinion or behavior. To do so, we first identify and track the media prevalence of two of these narratives: one focused on racial bias in policing and a second focused on the dangers of the profession. Despite the presence of these narratives in media, we find, experimentally, that public opinion about police violence is stable, regardless of the media narrative used. Finally, to better understand these null results, we use a content analysis of open-ended responses to uncover the demographic and ideological characteristics that are most more deterministic of their reactions to police violence. Altogether, these findings indicate attitudes about policing and planned political participation are ossified and unresponsive to media narratives.

Many theories of political participation imply that close elections increase voter turnout, but empirical support for this is mixed. One challenge is that close elections occur in unrepresentative places, making it difficult to extend counterfactual inferences across the wider electorate. In this note, I study closeness in an alternative way by leveraging those who move home between elections. With a large‐scale longitudinal survey in Great Britain, comparing individuals who move between safe and competitive parliamentary constituencies, I provide evidence that closeness increases campaign contact but generally fails to affect turnout. British movers are politically comparable to the wider electorate, so the results can be cautiously generalised. This contributes to substantive literature on voter and party‐led theories of participation, while adopting an empirical strategy seldom used in the study of political behaviour.

Research has consistently shown that women are less likely than men to participate in political parties as members and activists; this participation gender gap has persisted despite narrowing gender gaps in education, employment and in other types of political participation.  Yet while the gaps are widespread, their size varies greatly by country as well as by party.  To what extent do party organizational factors help explain these disparities? More pointedly, are there any lessons to be learned from past experiences about party mechanisms which might help to reduce these gaps? To answer these questions, this study investigates grassroots partisan participation in 68 parties in 12 parliamentary democracies, considering whether factors that have been shown to boost the number of women candidates and legislators are also associated with changing the traditionally male dominance of grassroots party politics.  We find evidence of links between some party mechanisms and higher women's intra‐party participation; however, because the same relationship holds for men's participation, they do not alter the participation gender gap. Only greater participation of women in parties’ parliamentary delegations is associated with smaller grassroots gender gaps. We conclude that parties which wish to close grassroots gender gaps should not rely solely on efforts aimed at remedying gender gaps at the elite level.

The Internet is playing an increasingly important role in shaping citizens’ political experience. We turn to it to consume political news and, in some countries, to even cast our ballots at parliamentary elections. Leading the way in embracing Internet voting (i‐voting) is Estonia where nearly half of the ballots cast during the 2019 parliamentary election were submitted online. Using original data from the 2019 Estonian Candidate Study, this paper explores the relationship between how candidates campaign and their electoral performance. It finds greater use of both offline and online campaign tools to contribute to higher vote shares as candidates win more traditional and i‐votes. These positive effects are similar in size, in terms of candidates’ overall electoral performance as well as their ability to attract different types of votes. The results show not only that individual‐level campaigns continue to matter, but that online campaigns have become as important as offline campaigns for candidates, and voters’ political activity often transcends the medium through which they receive political communication.

Most studies of political participation have either focused on specific political behaviours or combined several behaviours into additive scales of institutional versus non‐institutional participation. Through a multi‐group latent class analysis of participation in 15 different political actions, conducted among citizens from four Western European countries, we identified five empirically grounded participant types that differ in their political engagement, socio‐demographic characteristics and political attitudes: ‘voter specialists’, ‘expressive voters’, ‘online participants’, ‘all‐round activists’ and ‘inactives’. While the same participant types were identified in all four countries, the proportion of citizens assigned to each type varies across countries. Our results challenge the claim that some citizens specialize in protest politics at the expense of electoral politics. Furthermore, our typological approach challenges previous findings on the individual characteristics associated with political (in)action.

Recent research has shown that sexual and/or gender minority voters are prone to mobilizing when LGBT+ issues are on the political agenda. This increased level of political engagement is attributed to the experience of discrimination, understood both in legal and social terms, which spurs LGBT+ individuals to participate with the aim of advancing their rights. However, a crucial question remains unanswered: do these gaps in participation persist in contexts where core LGBT+ rights are protected? Drawing from comprehensive and verified data on the population of Sweden, this study finds evidence of a positive and sustained sexuality‐driven voter turnout gap across multiple elections. This gap manifests itself both shortly and a decade after the enactment of same‐sex marriage and shows no tangible signs of abating. In addition to improving our knowledge of political participation patterns among sexual minorities, these findings underscore the potential role of minority rights protection as a mechanism to ensure enduring inclusion of social minority groups within democratic processes.

This article investigates whether the smaller gender gaps in political engagement, found in more proportional electoral systems, translate into smaller gender differences in political participation. Using data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, it presents the argument that more proportional systems may send signals that multiple interests are included in the policy‐making process, which may increase women's levels of political participation and thereby reduce gender gaps. Additionally, the article tests for the possibility that a greater number of political parties and the elected representatives they provide act as barriers to political participation that have a greater impact on women's levels of participation than men's. It is argued that women's lower levels of political resources and engagement might create more difficult barriers for them than for men. Results lend little support for the first hypothesis, but a greater confirmation for the second.

This article investigates citizens’ refusal to take part in participatory and deliberative mechanisms. An increasing number of scholars and political actors support the development of mini‐publics – that is, deliberative forums with randomly selected lay citizens. It is often argued that such innovations are a key ingredient to curing the democratic malaise of contemporary political regimes because they provide an appropriate means to achieve inclusiveness and well considered judgment. Nevertheless, real‐life experience shows that the majority of citizens refuse the invitation when they are recruited. This raises a challenging question for the development of a more inclusive democracy: Why do citizens decline to participate in mini‐publics? This article addresses this issue through a qualitative analysis of the perspectives of those who have declined to participate in three mini‐publics: the G1000, the G100 and the Climate Citizens Parliament. Drawing on in‐depth interviews, six explanatory logics of non‐participation are distinguished: concentration on the private sphere; internal political inefficacy; public meeting avoidance; conflict of schedule; political alienation; and mini‐public's lack of impact on the political system. This shows that the reluctance to take part in mini‐publics is rooted in the way individuals conceive their own roles, abilities and capacities in the public sphere, as well as in the perceived output of such democratic innovations.