Concerns about the use of online political microtargeting (OPM) by campaigners have arisen since the Cambridge Analytica scandal hit the international political arena. In addition to providing conceptual clarity on OPM and explore the use of such techniques in Europe, this paper seeks to empirically disentangle the differing behaviours of campaigners when they message citizens through microtargeted rather than non-targeted campaigning. More precisely, I hypothesise that campaigners use negative campaigning and are more diverse in terms of topics when they use OPM. To investigate whether these expectations hold true, I use text-as-data techniques to analyse an original dataset of 4,091 political Facebook Ads during the last national elections in Austria, Italy, Germany and Sweden. Results show that while microtargeted ads might indeed be more thematically diverse, there does not seem to be a significant difference to non-microtargeted ads in terms of negativity. In conclusion, I discuss the implications of these findings for microtargeted campaigns and how future research could be conducted.

A global trend of populism affects established democracies in Europe and around the world. Instrumental to this wave is the notion of the People, harnessed by populists’ rhetoric to their political advantage. Yet only little is known on the various, even contradicting meanings of the People in political discourse. Drawing on popular sovereignty theories and representation studies, in this paper I develop a theoretical framework of four key facets of the People—political, national, spatial, and abstract, and their two dimensions—concrete and diffuse. I argue that while elections are associated primarily with the political facet of the People, cross-temporal approaches to electoral representation highlight the People as a multifaceted construct. I explore these theoretical conjectures with computational text analysis of news media coverage of the 2016 American election. I find that the People is a multidimensional construct, with temporal dynamics that connect the political facet with the broader political agency of the People. However, this connection holds only before the 2016 election, and not after them. The results are discussed in relation to populism and the challenges democracies are facing.

This study provides a novel contribution to the democracy–inequality literature by presenting the belief in democratic redistribution (the view that redistribution is an essential characteristic of democracy) as a conditioning factor. Democracy is expected to reduce inequality when people perceive redistribution as an essential characteristic of it, yet initial analysis shows contrasting results depending on the operationalisation of the indicator. Subsequent findings show, perhaps surprisingly, that democracy is only correlated with lower inequality when more people regard elections and liberties, instead of redistribution, as the essential characteristics of democracy. Democracy is associated with higher inequality when a larger share of the population considers redistribution to be essential to it. It is suggested that in response to the utilitarian view of democracy, authoritarian leaders can gain legitimacy by reducing inequality, whereas elected leaders in a democracy can hold power with little action on redistribution.

One of the structural problems of introductory lectures is that students’ learning progress is primarily assessed by taking a final exam. Weekly preparation and reading are driven only by self-motivation. Can a student’s decision to complete her weekly assignments be influenced by a simple reminder? In a pre-registered experimental design, we test if personalised reminders from the instructor delivered via text messages contribute to learning outcomes. We assess formative learning via regular quizzes at the beginning of each class, and summative learning via grades in a final exam. We do not find statistically significant differences in learning outcomes, and discuss how design features potentially drive this result. In the conclusion, we stress the importance of experimental design in assessing innovative and new learning techniques.

This symposium adds to the growing literature on gender differences in authorship and reviews written by male and female scholars in major European political science journals. The contributions capturing European Union Politics (EUP), the Journal of Common Market Studies (JCMS), West European Politics (WEP) and Southern European Society and Politics (SESP) confirm the male dominance in articles published and reviews written. The articles also illustrate that the gender gap in publishing mainly results from a submission gap with male scholars outnumbering female scholars at submission stage. For reviews, there is a double gender gap. Female scholars are less solicited for a review, and if asked to review for a journal, they are more likely to decline the review invitation.

Publishing has a variety of functions for academics. The most significant of these is linked to esteem and career success. Beyond this, however, publishing in academic journals also plays a significant knowledge production role; consequently, who is represented in journal publishing is also about who knows and is contributing to productive knowledge in different fields. In this article, we draw on the gender distribution in publishing from the journal’s inception in 1962 until 2021, for reviewing (2015–2020) and for submissions ratios since 2017 in JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies. While we identify a gender gap in publishing and a persistent one in submissions, we also highlight the ways in which this gap has impacted knowledge production and reinforced disciplinary boundaries. Over time, we also find notable changes in review participation with more women being invited to review and more likely to accept invitations to review. Because these findings are consistent with the general trends in Political Science and International Relations journals, we conclude this assessment with a reflection on what strategies have paid off to decrease existing gaps and meet some of the ongoing challenges.

Publication in peer-reviewed journals is of major importance to careers in academia. It has become clear that a considerable gender gap exists in political science journal publishing and a debate on how to confront this gap has got under way. This article examines the gender distribution in publishing (1978–2021), submissions and reviewing (2015 to end of 2020) for West European Politics. We identify a gender gap in publishing, but find a more pronounced gap when it comes to submissions. Over time, there are notable changes in authorship categories. In terms of the review process, we have not found a gender gap in desk-rejects or in the double blind peer review process. However, there is a considerable gender gap in review invitations sent out. In addition, female scholars are somewhat less likely to accept invitations to review than their male colleagues. These observations are in-line with the findings of other political science journals. They underline the need for the discipline to confront, in particular, imbalances in submissions and to identify the reasons behind them, as key means to reduce gender gaps in academia.

This article adds a new case-study to the existing empirical analyses of gender differences in academic journals. The record of South European Society and Politics confirms the established pattern of a gender gap in published output, with its source at the submissions stage. It also reveals gendered preferences with regard to authorship styles, highlighting a pattern of greater individualism and homophily for men and a more collaborative picture for female scholars; in particular, we found that co-authoring increases women’s publication footprint. Moving on to the journal’s gatekeepers, we also discovered gender imbalance. An investigation of rejection rates finds that the predominantly female editorial team made gender-neutral choices during the initial editorial review of submissions, but selected overwhelmingly male referees. While women are less successful than men in the blind peer review process, this is overshadowed by the difference in submission rates. Potential explanations for the latter were considered, including lesser access to academic networks as well as the “impostor phenomenon”, which afflicts women more than men. The article concludes that addressing the journal publishing gender gap requires broader changes in academic life.

The gender gap pervades many core aspects of political science. This article reports that females continue to be under-represented as authors and reviewers in European Union Politics and that these differences have only diminished slightly since the second half of the 2000s. We also report that females use more cautious and modest language in their correspondence with the editorial office, but do not find evidence that this under-studied aspect of the gender gap affects the outcome of the reviewing process. The authors discuss some measures European Union Politics and other journals might take to address the imbalance.