The state of American politics would be improved, many argue, if more moderate and qualified people served in government. We investigate what draws such individuals to run, focusing on a dimension of politics that has received scant attention within the candidate-entry literature—the ability of candidates, once elected, to exercise meaningful influence over policy. In a conjoint experiment, we find that the opportunity to wield greater authority differentially increases moderates’ interest in seeking office, and that more qualified people express more interest in running for offices with greater authority, lower thresholds for passing legislation, and higher staff support. These findings have implications for political representation, government effectiveness, and the relationship between institutional reform and mass politics.

Democracy faces growing threats from authoritarian ideologies, especially in terrorism-affected regions. We test whether citizen-targeted democracy-promotion intervention can bolster democratic support and resist authoritarian appeals. A randomized online experiment in Burkina Faso exposed participants to educational videos focusing on: (1) introduction of civic rights democracies offer, (2) general discussion of democracy’s advantages in combating terrorism, (3) Burkina Faso–specific discussion of democracy’s advantages in combating terrorism, (4) space exploration (placebo). Democracy-promotion videos increased democratic support. The general terrorism-advantage message produced the largest gains, whereas the country-specific message had little effect. Effects are not contingent on respondents’ proximity to attacks or direct experience. These findings highlight how democratic resilience can be strengthened in conflict-affected societies and inform future efforts to promote democracy.

.

Hate speech is widely seen as a significant obstacle to constructive online discourse, but the most effective strategies to mitigate its effects remain unclear. We claim that understanding its distribution across users is key to developing and evaluating effective content moderation strategies. We address this missing link by first examining the distribution of hate speech in five original datasets that collect user-generated posts across multiple platforms (social media and online newspapers) and countries (Switzerland and the United States). Across these diverse samples, the vast majority of hate speech is produced by a small fraction of users. Second, results from a pre-registered field experiment on Twitter indicate that counterspeech strategies obtain only small reductions of future hate speech, mainly because this approach proves ineffective against the most prolific contributors of hate. These findings suggest that complementary content moderation strategies may be necessary to effectively address the problem.

Scholars debate whether the presence of multiple parties in the legislature stabilizes dictatorships or promotes their demise. We show that authoritarian regimes face a dilemma: allowing for multipartism reduces the risk of bottom-up revolt, but facilitates protracted top-down democratization. Concessions to the opposition diminish the long-term benefits of authoritarian rule and empower regime soft-liners. We test our theory in Latin America—a region with a broad range of autocracies —using survival models, instrumental variables, random forests, and two case studies. Our theory explains why rational autocrats accept multipartism, even though this concession may ultimately undermine the regime. It also accounts for democratic transitions that occur when the opposition is fragmented and without a stunning authoritarian defeat.

Does group-based tribal thinking against ethnic out-groups condition support for both liberal and illiberal policies? Our thesis is that, irrespective of the direction of the policy (progressive or conservative), nativists express selective support for policies based on different signals of group-identity: descriptive markers, group-based substantive representation, in- and out-group norms, and group-based reasoning. We test this theoretical expectation using a novel AI-powered visual conjoint experiment in the Netherlands and Germany that asked individuals to select between hypothetical educational reform proposals presented by civic actors during a public consultation. Empirically, our results demonstrate that citizens, on average, are indeed selectively (il)liberal and that this instrumental policy support is greater among those with higher levels of underlying nativism. Specifically, we show that—among our multidimensional markers of group-based identities, norms, and reasoning—group-based substantive representation and in-group norms are the strongest determinants of support for diverse reform proposals. These findings have key implications on the malleable nature of citizens’ support for the backsliding of the liberal tenets of democracy as well as the persuasive power of out-group disidentification.

Research on economic voting shows that negative economic events typically reduce government support. However, we argue that external economic shocks may have the opposite effect: when faced with a foreign economic threat, voters will rally behind their government despite worsening economic perceptions. Using the unexpected collapse of Lehman Brothers (15 September 2008) as a case, we analyze European Social Survey data from six countries and find that while satisfaction with national economies declined, satisfaction with governments gradually rose. We document that rising media and political attention coincided with a rally effect fueled by past opposition voters and muted opposition elites. These findings demonstrate that foreign economic shocks influence democratic accountability and the ability of governments to act during hard times.

Recent scholarship highlights that executive orders issued by the president are not truly ‘unilateral,’ but require cooperation from administrative agencies for implementation. I argue that, because of this role for agencies, congressional committees can use oversight to shape executive order implementation. I demonstrate this dynamic using two datasets: a sample of executive orders that have been coded using measures of executive-branch delegation and discretion, and a collection of congressional hearings focusing on an executive order or its implementation. I find that Congress engages in more oversight activity when an order delegates more authority and a wider discretionary window to agencies. This finding reveals a previously overlooked form of interbranch conflict, and broadens our understanding of the politics of unilateralism.

In multiparty systems, parties signal conflict through communication, yet standard approaches to measuring partisan conflict in communication consider only the verbal dimension. We expand the study of partisan conflict to the nonverbal dimension by developing a measure of conflict signaling based on variation in a speaker’s expressed emotional arousal, as indicated by changes in vocal pitch. We demonstrate our approach using comprehensive audio data from parliamentary debates in Denmark spanning more than two decades. We find that arousal reflects prevailing patterns of partisan polarization and predicts subsequent legislative behavior. Moreover, we show that consistent with a strategic model of behavior, arousal tracks the electoral and policy incentives faced by legislators. All results persist when we account for the verbal content of speech. By documenting a novel dimension of elite communication of partisan conflict and providing evidence for the strategic use of nonverbal signals, our findings deepen our understanding of the nature of elite partisan communication.

Do economic sanctions negatively affect democracy and human rights in targeted countries? Although often intended to improve these outcomes, their record of doing so has historically been mixed at best. Most canonical studies cover the 1980s–1990s, but sanctions practice has since undergone major innovations following debates on humanitarian harm. Given this move toward ‘targeted’ sanctions, it stands to reason that sanctions may today be achieving their intended purposes. I take up policy and methodological innovations to re-examine the effects of Western sanctions seeking to improve democracy and human rights from 1990 to 2021. I find that negative effects persist, offering an important update to the empirical literature. Beyond this contribution, I present a template for replicating and extending country-year research in international relations (IR).

Extant work shows that generative AI such as GPT-3.5 and perpetuate social stereotypes and biases. A less explored source of bias is ideology: do GPT models take ideological stances on politically sensitive topics? We develop a novel approach to identify ideological bias and show that it can originate in both the training data and the filtering algorithm. Using linguistic variation across countries with contrasting political attitudes, we evaluate average GPT responses in those languages. GPT output is more conservative in languages conservative societies (polish) and more liberal in languages used in liberal ones (Swedish). These differences persist from GPT-3.5 to GPT-4. We conclude that high-quality, curated training data are essential for reducing bias.

Recent research suggests that local exposure to refugees does not increase support for far-right parties. We challenge this null result by drawing on granular data from Berlin in the wake of the Syrian refugee crisis. While prior work in the German context has generally assumed that refugee exposure is exogenous at the local level, we demonstrate that refugee housing was disproportionately concentrated in neighborhoods with young, non-citizen residents. To address this selection bias, we harmonize in-person and mail-in precinct boundaries across elections and implement a difference-in-differences design with synthetic precincts. We find that localized exposure to refugee housing did increase support for the far-right in the 2017 federal elections. However, this backlash is geographically narrow in scope. Our findings nuance prior research by demonstrating that even if sociotropic concerns dominate electoral responses to the refugee crisis, voters’ responses are consistent with group threat theory at the local level.

While we witness historic changes taking place in the conception and practice of citizenship, we know little about the political consequences it may bring. What are the effects of citizenship, as a status and a process, on political engagement? To gain leverage in addressing this question, we draw on citizenship categories that combine birthplace and the number of citizenship held. We compare US-born dual citizens to both naturalized-dual citizens and US-born mono citizens, which allows us to distinguish between the potential effects of socialization and the additional legal status. The study analyses two large nationally representative samples, presenting the first look at dual citizens in the United States. Results indicate that among dual citizens, those born in the US tend to participate more in politics than immigrants who naturalized. Among US-born citizens, the political participation of dual and mono citizens varies depending on the type of political activity. The study contributes to theoretical discussions on the relationship between an evolving citizenry and democratic participation.

This study investigates how states leverage leadership positions in international organizations (IOs) to enhance their staff representation. Using an original dataset of 25 United Nations system agencies from 1996 to 2022, we show that leadership roles can help states enhance their staff representation. Two mechanisms drive this influence: leaders secure voluntary contributions from their home countries to create favorable conditions for national representation, and they cultivate positive institutional relationships that facilitate greater staffing opportunities. Further analysis reveals that leaders from developing countries have demonstrated increasing effectiveness in strengthening their nations’ representation over time. Meanwhile, countries closely connected to leadership-holding states also gain staff representation. These dynamics may carry performance costs, raising broader implications for global governance.

Public perceptions of immigration are often inaccurate, yet research lacks conceptual clarity and valid measurement of these misperceptions. Prior work focuses mainly on population innumeracy (misestimating immigrant shares) and cannot distinguish genuine misperceptions from mere guessing. We introduce a survey module that captures multiple dimensions of immigration-related perceptions alongside respondents’ confidence in their estimates. Using population survey data from Switzerland, we develop confidence-weighted indicators that separate misperception from guessing. Although inaccurate perceptions are widespread across several immigration domains, they are less prevalent than often assumed; guessing accounts for a substantial share of observed inaccuracy. This measurement strategy enables more precise empirical tests of theories linking perceptions to political attitudes and behavior.

What are the effects of campaigns of coercive social mobilization on political attitudes? We show that such policies can strengthen authoritarian regimes by altering citizens’ patterns of trust. From 1968 to 1978, 16–17 million Chinese teenagers were “sent-down” to labor in rural areas, where they lived without their families under difficult conditions. Using a regression discontinuity design to account for selection into being sent-down, we show that former sent-down students are more critical of local government performance compared to their counterparts, yet they are less critical of the national government and generally more supportive of the regime. We see no significant differences in political participation, though there is some suggestive evidence that the sent-down students are more likely to favor officially sanctioned political activities. These results appear to stem from the close social control and isolation from family associated with the sent-down experience.

A successful energy transition requires the reallocation of private capital away from fossil fuel assets to greener alternatives. This transition is typically hindered by investors’ focus on today’s returns. In times of crisis, however, credible and unambiguous political signals about the future profitability of green industries can steer investments toward low-carbon assets. Drawing on European Union interventions during the onset of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we present an event study of daily stock market returns following the most salient policy announcements by the European Commission in 2022. Our analysis shows that markets for shares of EU-based energy firms were initially prepared to move capital to cleaner companies, suggesting support for the clean energy transition. However, the short-lived distributional effects materialized only for announcements that could unmistakably be understood as unwavering commitments to the EU’s green renewal, while more ambiguous announcements did not have the same distributional implications. Our findings emphasize that repeated and unambiguous political signals during crisis episodes can create favorable market conditions, at least in the short term, to support capital reallocation toward greener stocks.

In this article, I center substantial improvement in subnational democracy in the U.S. states as an object of inquiry and seek to explain it. I theorize that strong unions, high Democratic Party control of state government, an especially liberal Democratic Party, a large population of people of color, and a particularly liberal public mood may each contribute to substantial improvement in democratic quality. Using Coincidence Analysis (CNA), a configurational causal method, I assess the evidence for my hypotheses. The CNA identifies three alternative paths to substantial improvement in electoral democracy in the states. The results of my analysis highlight that substantial improvement in electoral democracy is the product of political struggle centrally involving unions and the Democratic Party.

When do citizens want a dominant political leader? A prominent Conflict-Sensitivity Hypothesis suggests such preferences arise during intergroup conflict, yet it remains untested in a real war. We report results from an experiment embedded in a two-wave panel survey with 1,081 Ukrainians (811 re-interviewed) at the start of Russia’s 2022 invasion. We find that respondents generally value competence and warmth over dominance in leaders. Yet, war increases preferences for dominance and reduces preferences for warmth and competence. Emotional reactions to war also relate to leader trait preferences: Ukrainians who react with aggressive emotions display enhanced preferences for all leader traits, whereas fearful reactions leave trait preferences mostly unaffected. These findings advance our understanding of how war shapes leader preferences.

Supervised learning is increasingly used in social science research to quantify abstract concepts in textual data. However, a review of recent studies reveals inconsistencies in reporting practices and validation standards. To address this issue, we propose a framework that systematically outlines the process of transforming text into a quantitative measure, emphasizing key reporting decisions at each stage. Clear and comprehensive validation is crucial, enabling readers to critically evaluate both the methodology and the resulting measure. To illustrate our framework, we develop and validate a measure assessing the tone of questions posed to nominees during U.S. Senate confirmation hearings. This study contributes to the growing literature advocating for transparency and rigor in applying machine learning methods within computational social sciences.

Congruence between the policies implemented by elected representatives and voters’ policy preferences is fundamental to representation and democratic accountability. Can we anticipate a closer alignment between voters’ policy preferences and the policies explicitly adopted by elected representatives on the more electorally significant issues? We address this question using a simple game theoretic model, where we demonstrate that greater salience of a particular issue in elections leads to less congruence between the policies implemented by elected representatives compared to voters’ policy preferences on that very issue. This finding carries significant implications for the connection between electoral salience and representation on valence issues, and has particular relevance for understanding the democratic foundations of security and counterterrorism policies.