Past the half-century mark of Converse's (1964) field-defining essay, the nature of political ideology in the mass public and how it has changed in response to partisan polarization remains enigmatic. To test the ideological structure of US public opinion, I develop and implement a Bayesian dynamic ordinal item response theory model. In contrast to static scaling procedures, this method allows for changes in the mappings between issue attitudes and the underlying ideological dimension over time. The results indicate that over the last forty years, mass attitudes on a range of long-standing policy controversies better fit a unidimensional ideological structure. As among elites, the left–right dimension has come to encompass a wide range of policy, partisan, and value divides in the mass public. Further, these trends hold for voters at all levels of political sophistication. Widespread conflict extension appears to be a defining feature of mass polarization in contemporary US politics.

Does social media educate voters, or mislead them? This study measures changes in political knowledge among a panel of voters surveyed during the 2015 UK general election campaign while monitoring the political information to which they were exposed on the Twitter social media platform. The study's panel design permits identification of the effect of information exposure on changes in political knowledge. Twitter use led to higher levels of knowledge about politics and public affairs, as information from news media improved knowledge of politically relevant facts, and messages sent by political parties increased knowledge of party platforms. But in a troubling demonstration of campaigns' ability to manipulate knowledge, messages from the parties also shifted voters' assessments of the economy and immigration in directions favorable to the parties' platforms, leaving some voters with beliefs further from the truth at the end of the campaign than they were at its beginning.

How do parties decide when to campaign on valence issues given high degrees of uncertainty? Although past studies have provided evidence of transnational emulation of parties' position-taking strategies, these findings do not directly apply to saliency strategies. Moreover, the exact diffusion mechanism remains largely elusive. Based on the issue saliency literature, this study develops novel theoretical propositions and argues that conscious learning enables parties to infer the relative utility of emphasizing consensual issues during an electoral campaign. The proposed theory gives rise to different expectations at the domestic and transnational levels because of the distinct logic of issue competition. By analyzing environmental issue emphasis in party manifestos, the authors find direct transnational dependencies and indirect spillover effects among the parties' saliency strategies. They identify conscious learning, rather than mere imitation or independent decision making, as the diffusion mechanism at work. Yet, in line with saliency-based theories, electoral competition mutes the diffusion of electoral strategies domestically.

This article assesses whether messages that are framed to denigrate a politician or political entity in the eyes of a particular group – defined here as negative targeted messages – decreases Blacks' enthusiasm to vote. It also explores why such messages are effective at demobilizing Black voters. Using a survey experiment implemented on a nationally representative sample, the authors find that Blacks are less enthusiastic about voting when presented with evidence of racism within their preferred political party. Whites and Latinxs do not respond similarly to the same stimulus. The findings also demonstrate evidence that the effectiveness of negative targeted messages towards Blacks is driven by the treatment's ability to alter perceptions of party empathy. Overall, the results suggest that targeted negative messages can be effective at depressing Black turnout. However, parties may be able to counter this negative messaging with evidence of outreach to minority communities to demonstrate a greater sense of empathy.

In this study, I investigate how information made available by the introduction of television affected the importance of the national economy in the context of US presidential elections from 1944 to 1964. Using the fact that television stations were introduced in counties across the United States at different points in time, I assess the effect of television on economic voting using a difference-in-differences design. I first show that television stations spent more time covering national politicians than did local newspapers in the 1960 presidential election. More national news increased the salience of the national economy in presidential elections. There was no evidence that television affected prospective pocketbook voting.

Inspired by Lipset and Rokkan, the field of political science has primarily focused on party oppositions as a derivative of historically anchored conflicts among social groups. Yet parties are not mere social mirrors; they are also active interpreters of social context. In a globalized era they deploy conflicting frames on how solidarity may be preserved, as recent work on populist welfare chauvinism shows. However, the role of party political agency in framing solidarity lacks an overarching framework. This article therefore proposes a Durkheimian model that takes the integrative pole of the conflict–integration dialectic seriously and distinguishes among group-based, compassionate, exchange-based and empathic frames. The authors test this solidarity framework in Flanders (Belgium) – a good case study due to its fragmented party system and increasing economic and cultural openness. The content analyses of party manifestos presented here suggest that a solidarity-based deductive approach to studying partisan competition is relevant because partisan differentiation along solidarity lines is growing; this evolution converges with similar inductive expert-based and issue-based findings.

Democracy assistance, including the promotion of electoral security, is often a central component of contemporary peacekeeping operations. Preventing violence during post-conflict elections is critical for the war-to-democracy transition. Yet little is known about the role of peacekeepers in this effort. To fill this gap, this study provides the first comprehensive sub-national study of peacekeeping effectiveness in reducing the risk of electoral violence. It combines geo-referenced data on peacekeeping deployment across all multidimensional peacekeeping missions in Africa over the past two decades with fine-grained data on electoral violence. The analysis finds a negative association between peacekeeping presence and the risk of electoral violence. The relationship is of a similar magnitude in the pre- and post-election periods. However, the association is more strongly negative for violence perpetrated by non-state actors compared to violence perpetrated by government-affiliated actors. Analyses using two-way fixed-effects models and matching mitigate potential selection biases.

Comparative analyses of party policy diffusion are only just emerging. To better understand the conditions under which diffusion occurs, this article argues that three heuristics – availability, representativeness and anchoring – shape parties' efforts to gather information (from elsewhere), leading to differing diffusion effects. The study operationalizes the outcome as textual similarity of party manifestos in nineteen Western democracies from 1960 to 2016, applying a text-as-data approach and machine translation. Analyzing dyads, it assesses how commonalities and sender/receiver attributes impact diffusion. It finds that there is little room for cross-border diffusion as successful parties stick to their old program. Beyond the still-prevailing domestic context, ‘learning from cultural reference groups’ in a region is most important. In addition, diffusion appears within EP factions and transnational party organizations independently of the success/loss of the sender. The analysis thus sheds light on (un-)favorable conditions for party policy diffusion and paves the way for future studies applying machine translation and quantitative text analyses.

This article contributes to the recent research on Brexit and public opinion formation by contending that the determinants of the referendum results should be evaluated against the background of wider public security concerns. The British public has long regarded terrorism as a top concern, more so than in any other European country. Terrorist attacks on UK soil raised voters' awareness of security issues and their saliency in the context of the EU referendum. The study finds that locations affected by terrorist violence in their proximity exhibit an increase in the share of pro-Remain votes, particularly those that experienced more sensational attacks. Using individual-level data, the results show that in the aftermath of terrorist attacks, citizens are more likely to reconsider the security risks involved in leaving the EU.

Mainstream parties in Western Europe are increasingly struggling to hold together their base of support. As a lens for exploring this changing electoral landscape, this article focuses on the growing share of the electorate that is cross-pressured between conservative and progressive attitudes on economic and cultural issues. It argues that a stable asymmetry characterizes Western European mass attitudes: while support for the left is common among voters with progressive attitudes on both issues, it is enough to be conservative on one issue to turn right. Analyzing survey data collected from 1990 to 2017, the study shows that cross-pressures are resolved in favor of the right and examines the trade-offs this poses to center-right parties. These findings contribute to debates on electoral dealignment and realignment and shed light on the electoral choices of the center-right.

Scholars have long noted that couples are more likely to vote compared to individuals who live alone, and that partners' turnout behavior is strongly correlated. This study examines a large administrative dataset containing detailed information about validated turnout and the timing of individuals moving in together, and finds evidence of a substantial and robust increase in turnout after cohabitation. The study exploits the fact that two-voter households moving in together right before an election are comparable to those moving in together right after the election. Depending on the model specification, turnout increases by 3.5 to 10.6 percentage points in the months after taking up cohabitation. Voters are mobilized regardless of their own and their cohabitant's turnout behavior in a previous election. The results are robust to several robustness checks, including benchmarking with singles who move to mitigate the cost of moving in the analysis. The results highlight the importance of social norms and the household's essential role as a proximate social network that increases turnout.

Political campaigns frequently emphasize the material stakes at play in election outcomes to motivate participation. However, field-experimental academic work has given greater attention to other aspects of voters' decisions to participate despite theoretical models of turnout and substantial observational work signaling that a contest's perceived importance affects the propensity to vote. We identify two classes of treatments that may increase the material incentive to participate and test these messages in a large-scale placebo-controlled field experiment in which approximately 24,500 treatment letters were delivered during Connecticut's 2013 municipal elections. We find some evidence that these messages are effective in increasing participation, as well as that some of them may be more effective than typical nonpartisan get-out-the-vote appeals. While these results remain somewhat preliminary, our findings have important implications for our understanding of how voters decide whether to participate and how best to mobilize citizens who would otherwise sit out elections.

In recent decades, citizenship policies in Europe have changed significantly: some governments have introduced restrictive new requirements for citizenship, while others have made citizenship more accessible. What explains this variation? Despite a burgeoning literature on both comparative citizenship and spatial competition among parties, scholarship on this question remains in its infancy and primarily focused on the influence of the far right. Expanding on this growing research, this article argues that citizenship policy change results from electoral competition on both sides of the political spectrum, in conjunction with governments’ ideological orientation. Using new data on citizenship policies across sixteen European countries from 1975 to 2014, the author demonstrates that left-of-center governments facing increasing levels of left party competition are associated with more accessible policy changes, while increasing levels of party competition from the far right yield more restrictive policy changes under not only right-of-center governments, but also centrist and left-of-center governments as well.

Incumbents have many tools to tip elections in their favor, yet little is known about how they choose between strategies. By comparing various tactics, this article argues that electoral malpractice centered on manipulating institutions offers the greatest effectiveness while shielding incumbents from public anger and criminal prosecution. To demonstrate this, the study focuses on a widespread institutional tactic: preventing candidates from accessing the ballot. First, in survey experiments, Russian voters respond less negatively to institutional manipulations, such as rejecting candidates, than to blatant fraud, such as ballot box stuffing. Next, using evidence from 25,935 Russian mayoral races, the article shows that lower societal and implementation costs enable incumbents to strategically reject candidacies from credible challengers and then reduce their electoral vulnerability. In all, the technology behind specific manipulations helps determine when and how incumbents violate electoral integrity.

Whether or not nationalism fuels terrorist violence by ethnic groups is an important yet underexplored research question. This study offers a theoretical argument, empirical analysis and a case study. When political leaders such as presidents and prime ministers use nationalism to shore up legitimacy, they threaten the existence of disfavored ethnic groups. In turn, those groups are more likely to respond with terrorist attacks. The author tests this argument using a sample of 766 ethnic groups across 163 countries from 1970 to 2009. The multilevel mixed-effects negative binomial regression results provide evidence that leader nationalism is a significant driver of ethnic terrorism. The detrimental effect of nationalism remains the same after using a generalized method of moments method to account for possible reverse causality. A case study of Sinhalese nationalist leaders versus Tamil Tigers also supports the nationalism and terrorism nexus.

What effect does black politics in the United States have on the attitudes of black citizens in other national contexts? Literature on the black diaspora and transnationalism has characterized cultural and political linkages between black communities in North America, the Caribbean, and Europe, especially during the mid-20th century. In this article, I exploit random timing in the administration of a public attitudes survey to demonstrate that such linkages persist and that the police killing of Eric Garner in 2014 negatively affected black Londoners’ attitudes toward the Metropolitan Police. Notably, I find the effect was largely concentrated among black Londoners: estimates of an effect on white and South Asian Londoners were small and largely insignificant. The evidence presented here demonstrates that racial violence in the United States can affect racial politics in other national contexts and helps frame the emergence of Black Lives Matter chapters and protests beyond the United States.

The recent expansion of the primary electorate by one of Ghana's major parties offers a rare opportunity to assess the effects of franchise extensions in contemporary new democracies. Using an original dataset on candidate entry and nominations, this article shows that expanding the primary electorate opened paths to office for politicians from social groups that were previously excluded, such as women and ethnic groups outside the party's core national coalition. The authors propose that democratizing candidate selection has two consequences in patronage-oriented political systems: vote buying will become a less effective strategy and the electorate will become more diverse. These changes, in turn, affect the types of politicians who seek and win legislative nominations. This suggests that a simple shift in who votes in intraparty primaries can be a key institutional mechanism for improving the descriptive representation of women and other under-represented groups.

When do autocrats employ propaganda to threaten citizens with repression? Do threats of repression condition citizen behavior? This article develops a theory of propaganda-based threats in autocracies that builds on insights from experimental psychology. It argues that even credible threats of repression are costly, and so are reserved for moments when collective action is most likely. Since threats of repression are employed sparingly, the authors also expect them to be effective. The theory is tested using data from China, the world's most populous autocracy. The study analyzes all 164,707 articles published between 2009 and 2016 in the Workers' Daily, a state-run newspaper that focuses on domestic issues and targets a non-elite audience. It finds that the Chinese government employs propaganda-based threats of repression primarily around the anniversaries of ethnic separatist movements in Tibet and Xinjiang regions. Using an instrumental variables strategy, the study shows that these threats decrease protest rates by a substantively meaningful margin.

During the Great Recession, governments across the continent implemented austerity policies. A large literature claims that such policies are surprisingly popular and have few electoral costs. This article revisits this question by studying the popularity of governments during the economic crisis. The authors assemble a pooled time-series data set for monthly support for ruling parties from fifteen European countries and treat austerity packages as intervention variables to the underlying popularity series. Using time-series analysis, this permits the careful tracking of the impact of austerity packages over time. The main empirical contributions are twofold. First, the study shows that, on average, austerity packages hurt incumbent parties in opinion polls. Secondly, it demonstrates that the magnitude of this electoral punishment is contingent on the economic and political context: in instances of rising unemployment, the involvement of external creditors and high protest intensity, the cumulative impact of austerity on government popularity becomes considerable.

This article studies the persistent effects of past agrarian inequality on contemporary voting preferences. Although Western European countries became industrial (and later post-industrial) economies, the political effects of the agrarian cleavage are still visible in those countries in which the agrarian issue was dominant in the interwar period (the industrial laggards). Looking at the spatial variation in voting patterns in the fifteen elections held in Spain since 1977, we show through mediation analysis that areas with high historical agrarian inequality have higher levels of leftist vote. We examine two transmission channels: one economic (related to backwardness); the other political (related to family transmission of political allegiances). A survey analysis provides evidence in favour of family transmission. A brief exploration of other cases confirms the general argument: a similar effect is found in Italy (an industrial laggard), but not in England (an early industrializer).