We distinguish between the experience and expectation of subjective status decline in relation to electoral behaviour. Studies often link support for radical parties, especially radical right ones, to voters’ experience of status decline. A few other studies argue that voters’ expectation of status decline also triggers radical right support. Without precise measures of both perceptions, it has been difficult to distinguish which (or both) is most relevant for radical right support in Western Europe and the USA. Using survey data from 2018 (n = 4,076) and 2020 (n = 2,106) in Finland, we could precisely measure and distinguish between voters’ experience and expectation of status decline. Descriptively, voters who have experienced status decline have low income, whereas voters who expect status decline have (lower)middle income. Using multivariate analyses, we find that voters who expect status decline consistently prefer radical right parties more than voters who expect status improvement. However, there is no robust evidence of radical right support among voters who have experienced status decline. These findings suggest that the expectation, not experience, of status decline drives radical right support. If these expectations trigger radical right support in Nordic welfare states, they may be even more pertinent in less comprehensive welfare states.

Drawing on longitudinal ethnographic research carried out over two-and-a-half decades in barrio Luis Fanor Hernández, a poor neighborhood in Managua, Nicaragua, this article explores how legal and illegal economic activities are socially legitimized, and more specifically, how certain illegal economic activities can end up being seen as legitimate, and certain legal ones perceived as illegitimate. The first part of the article explores the variable morality surrounding different types of criminal activities that local gang members engaged in during the 1990s and 2000s. The second part considers my experiences running a local market stall, describing the contrasting reactions I faced when I resorted to first legal, and then illegal, strategies to boost my revenue levels. Taken together, these examples showcase how the social legitimization of an economic activity has less to do with whether it is legal or illegal, but rather the future aspirations it embodies.

La investigación que se presenta analiza la incidencia del trabajo infantil fuera del hogar en el desempeño académico de los estudiantes de tercer y sexto grado de primaria en América Latina, en las áreas de lectura y matemáticas. Para ello, se utilizan modelos multinivel de cuatro niveles con los datos del Segundo Estudio Regional Comparativo y Explicativo de la UNESCO, analizándose algo más de noventa y cinco mil estudiantes de tercer grado de educación primaria y de noventaiún mil alumnos de sexto grado de dieciséis países latinoamericanos. Los resultados muestran que los estudiantes que trabajan fuera del hogar tanto de tercero como de sexto grado, obtienen menores desempeños en lectura y matemáticas que quienes no lo hacen. Tal rendimiento se ve además negativamente afectado, en función de las horas de dedicación diaria y días trabajados en la semana.

This study examines the effect of democratization on a key education reform across three Mexican states. Previous scholarship has found a positive effect of electoral competition on social spending, as leaders seek to improve their reelection prospects by delivering services to voters. However, the evidence presented here indicates that more money has not meant better educational outcomes in Mexico. Rather, new and vulnerable elected leaders are especially susceptible to the demands of powerful interest groups at the expense of accountability to constituents. In this case, the dominant teachers' union has used its leverage to exact greater control over the country's resource-rich merit pay program for teachers. It has exploited this control to increase salaries and decrease standards for advancement up the remuneration ladder. The evidence suggests that increased electoral competition has led to the empowerment of entrenched interests rather than voters, with an overall negative effect on education.