How should a democratic assembly be designed to attract large and diverse groups of citizens? We addressed this question by conducting a population survey in three communities with institutionalized participatory deliberative democracy in Switzerland. To examine participatory disposition in light of both individual characteristics and design features of the assembly that citizens contemplate joining, the survey comprised a conjoint experiment in which each respondent was asked to indicate his or her likelihood of participating in democratic assemblies with varying design features. The main result is that design features emphasizing the communitarian character of the assembly increase citizens’ willingness to participate, especially among disengaged citizens. Moreover, citizens were found to be less attracted by both very consensual and very adversarial meeting styles. Rather, we found meeting styles combining both controversy and consensus to be most favorable to assembly turnout. The implication is that practitioners of participatory or deliberative democracy must engage in community-building to foster turnout and inclusiveness in democratic assemblies.

In Europe, the integration process has domesticated international relations, safeguarded member-states’ democracies, and enabled collective action and supranational problem-solving. It has brought about the European Union (EU) and a democratic ‘surplus’. How has this been possible when the binding effect of EU law is grounded neither in the sovereign’s monopoly on power at the European level nor in the final decision-making authority of the EU? An answer to this puzzle is found in the fact that a public coercive framework has been established, which aims at solving the indeterminacy and assurance problems facing international cooperation. The enabling condition of sovereignty is replaced by those of co-legislation and a binding judicial process. The latter creates reasons for deference to legitimate authority and hence a compliance condition. However, since the Union falls short of meeting certain democratic standards, oversteps competences, and is plagued with inertia, there is a call for constitutional reform.

Societies are experiencing deep and intertwined structural changes that may unsettle perceptions European citizens have of their economic and employment security. In turn, such perceptions likely alter people’s political positions. For instance, those worried by labour market competition may prefer greater social protection to compensate for the accrued risk, or prefer more closed economies where external borders provide protection (or perceived protection). We develop expectations about how such distinct reactions can emerge from distinct labour-market risks of globalization, or automation, or migration. We test these expectations using a conjoint experiment in 13 European countries on European-level social policy. Results broadly corroborate our expectations on how different concerns about sources of labour market competition yield support for different features of European-level social policy.

This study uses a rational choice approach to argue that an under-theorized and rarely tested cause of governmental discrimination against religious minorities is its popularity. Specifically, we argue that self-interested politicians are more likely to enact discriminatory policies when they believe said discrimination will be popular. These policies, in turn, have payoffs via increased public perceptions of governmental legitimacy. Using the Religion and State project, round 3 and World Values Survey data for members of the majority religion between 1990 and 2014 in 58 Christian-majority countries, we demonstrate that prejudice against members of other religions predicts increased governmental religious discrimination, which is, in turn, associated with higher confidence in government, legislatures, and political parties. While our results are specific to discrimination against religious minorities, this suggests that when discrimination against minorities in general is popular, politicians are likely to oblige.

The rise of populist parties in Europe has generated an enormous amount of academic literature. Previous research has thoroughly examined the factors contributing to the electoral success of populist parties. Surprisingly, very little attention has been paid to the role of decentralization, one of the most widespread forms of governance in the world. This paper aims to fill this gap by presenting a theoretical and empirical account of the effect of decentralization on the electoral fortunes of populist parties in Europe. Using aggregated data from election results in 30 European countries, this paper puts competing hypotheses to the test. I argue that the mechanism linking decentralization and populist parties’ national election results is, in fact, indirect and depends on the existence of a regional tier of government. Results suggest that having representation in subnational parliaments plays a significant role in the national success of populist parties, and this effect is contingent on the degree of regional authority.

This article examines the relationship between term limits in parliament and “electoral disconnection,” the notion that legislators constrained in their ability to run for office face diminished incentives to perform strategic activities to boost their chances of securing candidacy and re-election. We leverage the case of the Italian Five Star Movement’s party-imposed limit of two terms for affiliates seeking to gain or retain a parliamentary seat. We exploit an original dataset of parliamentary activities covering both chambers of the Italian Parliament between 2013 and 2022. We estimate a series of mixed-effect regression models to assess the performance of MPs who were elected in 2013 and re-elected in 2018. In line with our expectations, the evidence suggests that term-limited representatives serving their second mandate tend to become less productive when it comes to “electorally lucrative” activities and more prone to rebelling than their non-term-limited colleagues. These findings contribute to our understanding of the incentives that drive parliamentary behavior.

Previous research has shown that positive perceptions of government performance are linked to higher levels of citizens’ support for democracy. However, the policy response to the COVID-19 crisis presented a unique paradox as relative success in preventing the virus spread depended on expanding executive powers, often at the cost of individual freedoms. Exploring this paradox, we investigate whether the link between perceptions of government performance and support for democracy holds in a situation where positive performance essentially means a restriction of freedoms. Using original survey data from seven European countries, we show that notwithstanding the democratic sacrifices, people with positive evaluations of the government’s response are more likely to maintain support for the democratic system. Nevertheless, people weighed responses to the health domain more heavily than to the economic domain, suggesting that the output legitimacy – democratic support link varies across domain-specific evaluations.

This article discusses reproductionist perspectives that assume there is little local participatory institutions can do to address the underrepresentation and the domination of some social groups. While there is also empirical basis to be skeptical, the evidence suggests that, occasionally, the reproduction of class inequalities can be counteracted. This encourages us to consider the conditions that favor greater participation of working-class, economically and culturally disadvantaged people. Comparing evidence from various studies in a range of countries, the article argues that certain contextual factors and inclusion tools produce higher rates of mobilization and more egalitarian deliberations. Specifically, the article focuses on the effects of three conditions: a) special mobilization efforts; b) design choices and inclusion tools; and c) the broadening of the political subject through cultural mobilization. As well as reflecting on the shortcomings of these factors, a new research agenda for social equality in participation is also proposed.

Current research faces challenges in explaining how contextual factors account for variations in the rally effect in political trust during the COVID-19 pandemic. While systematic explanations of country-level differences are hard to establish by means of cross-sectional comparisons, we propose to compare subnational areas within a country to learn more about the role of contextual factors. In this research note, we argue that ethnic diversity is a crucial contextual factor that helps researchers understand differences in political trust at the onset of the pandemic. Specifically, we propose that the rally effect should be restricted to ethnically more homogeneous contexts. An analysis of geocoded household panel data from the Netherlands reveals a strong rally effect in ethnically homogenous areas, while political trust in ethnically diverse contexts appears not to respond to the pandemic. This suggests an entrenched geography of political trust, which is associated with ethnic divides and is even maintained under crisis.