I checked 18 political science journals on Saturday, July 12, 2025 using the Crossref API. For the period July 05 to July 11, I found 23 new paper(s) in 10 journal(s).

American Journal of Political Science

The super rich and the rest: Campaign finance pressures and the wealth of politicians
Lucia Motolinia, Marko KlaĆĄnja, Simon Weschle
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We provide a comprehensive theoretical and empirical account of the relationship between campaign finance pressures and the wealth of politicians. We argue that the heavily right‐skewed wealth distributions observed in contemporary societies translate into similarly skewed distributions of campaign resources. Such unequal resources mean that greater pressures to spend on campaigns disproportionately benefit the very wealthy. We also identify several conditions that determine the extent of the financing advantages of the very rich, and at whose expense they accrue. We test our propositions using a unique original data set on the wealth of more than 23,000 national legislators from 41 countries, as well as by exploiting quasi‐random variation in financing pressures provided by recent campaign finance reforms in Brazil and Chile. The analyses consistently show that greater financing pressures lead to greater shares of wealthy, and especially very wealthy legislators, and that these advantages vary in ways consistent with our predictions.

British Journal of Political Science

The Electoral Appeal of Symbolic Class Signalling Through Cultural Consumption
David Weisstanner, Sarah Engler
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This letter investigates the electoral effects of symbolic class signalling through ‘cultural consumption’ in contemporary politics. We explore how politicians referring to an activity related to class-specific ‘cultural consumption’ – drinking beer in a pub or listening to classical music with a glass of wine – appeals to voters. We argue that symbolic class signalling has gained in importance due to the political realignment along the cultural dimension, and we expect radical right parties to benefit most from it. Our conjoint survey experiment with 1,550 respondents in Switzerland in January/February 2023 confirms our expectation. While many voters are biased against politicians claiming to enjoy classical music and wine, politicians drinking beer in a pub appeal particularly to radical right working-class voters without tertiary education. These findings contribute to our understanding of the role of symbolic politics and class identity in times of political transformation.

Electoral Studies

Populist leaders and the political budget cycle
Assaf Shmuel
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The East in wolf’s clothing. Wolf attacks correlate with but do not cause far-right voting
Nico Sonntag
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Party Politics

Repression, party ties, and political beliefs: Ideological continuities among voters after socialism
Zeth Isaksson
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How are experiences from socialist rule reflected in support for the former regime and ideological stances after democratization? This study examines how varied experiences under socialism—whether as regime supporters or victims of repression—continue to be linked to political behavior decades after transition. Using three decades of intergenerational panel data from the former German Democratic Republic, the findings show that repression is associated with long-term opposition to the regime’s successor party, Die Linke, while former party membership corresponds with lasting support. These experiences also relate to ideological self-placement, with distinct left-right patterns persisting based on past affiliations. Within families, the extent to which these political legacies are passed down depends on political interest, highlighting that they are not uniformly inherited. By exploring how socialist-era experiences remain embedded in post-transition political attitudes, this study underscores the role of historical experiences in shaping political behavior in new democracies.
Of the people and the elite? The strategic framing of Jews, antisemitism, and Israel by the AfD and the FPÖ
Claire Burchett
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Research has examined the co-existence of pro-Jewish discourse and antisemitic incidents within the populist radical right parties (PRR), Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ). This paper analyses this phenomenon through the lens of populist discourse, and finds that Jews are accepted into “the people” when they agree with the parties’ (mostly anti-Islam and anti-elitist) message. However, Jews are excluded, aligned with “the elite”, when they do not. This paper also finds that only the FPÖ demonstrates this same approach towards Israel. The parties thus pursue a dual strategy with regards to Jews and Israel: they use populist discourse as a way to “normalise” their framing of Jews and legitimise exclusion, but the overlap between antisemitic and anti-elitist ideas can make this appear as antisemitic dog-whistling.
An alternative to the party? Australia’s movement for community independents
Richard Reid, Carolyn M Hendriks, Anika Gauja
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Political parties as the sole vehicle for collective organising in the electoral arena are coming under increasing pressure in systems of representative democracy. A serious disruptor to party dominance has emerged in Australia where local community groups are self-organising to replace their federal party representative with a ‘community independent’. Collectively these groups are referred to as the “Community Independents Movement” (CIM), whose broad goal is to provide voters with an alternative to the “broken” party system. This article asks: what in practice is the alternative form of political organising offered by the CIM? An analysis finds that the CIM performs many conventional functions of political parties, but its localised approach affords greater flexibility and local autonomy. The case of the CIM speaks to global debates on the conceptual and functional differences between parties and other modes of political organising.

Political Psychology

Yesterday, all our troubles seemed so far away—(Re)conceptualizing nostalgic deprivation as a predictor for radical‐right support
Carla Grosche, Tobias Rothmund
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The return to “old glories” is one of the main promises of radical‐right parties, picking up on widespread longings for the collective past. Many people argue that radical‐right support is motivated by Relative Deprivation, that is, the perception of being worse off than others. We suggest that radical‐right support is more likely to reflect Nostalgic Deprivation —the perception of an unfair decline ingroup status compared to the past. However, psychological theorizing is rare, and previous studies differ in their conceptualization and measurement. We seek to fill this gap by introducing and validating a standardized measure of nostalgic deprivation. Based on a literature review, we start with a concise definition and conceptualization of nostalgic deprivation. We developed a reliable nine‐item self‐report scale that captures nostalgic deprivation indicated by (a) a temporal disadvantage comparison, (b) injustice appraisal, and (c) collective anger and nostalgia ( N = 398). We estimated the reliability and validity using empirical indicators of demographics, right‐wing populist attitudes, voting and personality measures in German ( N = 1206) and US‐quota samples ( N = 490). Our data shed light on the great predictive power of nostalgic deprivation for radical‐right support surpassing established measures of relative deprivation and nostalgia.
“Terms such as ‘true German’ [
] belong in the history books”: How Germans with and without migrant backgrounds understand concepts used in survey research on national attachments
Marlene Mußotter, Eunike Piwoni
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Whilst survey research on national attachments has used various measures, the question of how respondents understand these measures, and especially the highly ambiguous concepts they entail, has remained understudied. Moreover, scholars have used samples consisting of “citizens”, thereby not distinguishing between citizens with and citizens without a migrant background. Drawing on qualitative evidence from six focus group discussions in Germany in 2023, we seek to contribute to filling this research gap and investigate the understanding of selected measures of national attachments and the terms they entail from the perspective of Germans with and without migrant backgrounds. In so doing, we explore the meaning of three concepts – namely, “true German” ( wahrer Deutscher ), “German people” ( deutsches Volk ), and “fatherland” ( Vaterland ). Our discussions indicate differences between these groups and show, among other things, that the understanding of Germans with a migrant background tends to be driven by an ethnic and ethnocultural notion of nationhood, while the understanding of those without a migrant background often has a more civic notion. Moreover, the latter were more likely to question the three terms than the former. Overall, our study calls for refining extant measures to ensure they do justice to an increasingly multicultural society.
The promises and pitfalls of using panel data to understand individual belief change
Turgut KeskintĂŒrk, Pablo Bello, Stephen Vaisey
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We investigate whether studies on political belief change can identify change trajectories at the individual level. Using simulations and case studies, we propose a grid‐search framework that allows researchers to evaluate the extent to which their target estimates generalize to their study population. We use simulated datasets to estimate plausible values for how many people changed, how much they changed, and who changed, based on observed response trajectories. Our results suggest that researchers should think carefully about the conditions under which they may make claims about belief change at the individual level. To guide substantive theory‐building, we propose a concise diagnostic routine researchers can use to translate their claims into a set of plausible alternatives and evaluate potential generative processes. We provide an R package to help researchers implement this procedure in their own work.

Political Science Research and Methods

Generic title: Not a research article
When hearts meet minds: complementary effects of perspective-getting and information on refugee inclusion – ERRATUM
Claire L. Adida, Adeline Lo, Melina Platas, Lauren Prather, Scott Williamson
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Legislative reciprocity: Using a proposal lottery to identify causal effects
Semra Sevi, Donald P. Green
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Although much has been written on legislative reciprocity, rarely have scholars had an opportunity to leverage a randomly assigned asset to assess whether and how legislators reciprocate when their colleagues assist them. Using the lottery that allows Canadian Members of Parliament (MPs) to propose bills or motions, we examine whether MPs’ priority numbers affect their proclivity to second motions made by other MPs, which would be expected if MPs sought to build support for their own proposals by supporting proposals by others. Although MPs almost always make a proposal if their priority number allows them to do so, we find a weak relationship between MPs’ priority numbers and their probability of seconding others’ proposals. Moreover, when we look at successive parliaments, we see only faint indications that those who, by chance, won the right to propose in the previous session (and who therefore were eligible to attract seconds) are more likely to second others’ proposals in the current session. Although subject to a fair amount of statistical uncertainty that will gradually dissipate as future parliaments are examined, this pattern of evidence currently suggests that correlated seconding behavior among legislators is more the product of homophily than reciprocity.
Voter turnout and selective abstention in concurrent votes
Reto Foellmi, Rino Heim, Lukas Schmid
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This paper studies voter turnout and selective abstention on voting days with more than one election or referendum. We extend the rational choice model to a setting with multiple concurrent votes. The model is based on a voter’s net benefit, which includes a vote’s salience and information costs. It explains how the net benefit of different concurrent votes enters a voter’s utility function and thereby affects turnout and selective abstention, the tendency to vote in one but not all votes held on the same day. We test our theoretical predictions using data on concurrent propositions in Switzerland from 1988 to 2016. Our results suggest that the proposition with the highest net benefit and the sum of the net benefits of all concurrent propositions are relevant determinants of the individual turnout decision. We also find that a proposition’s net benefit explains variation in selective abstention.

PS: Political Science & Politics

Pipeline Diversity via Career Diversity: Lessons from a Research Experience for Undergraduates Program
Jennifer Barnes, Emily Hencken Ritter, Sharece Thrower, Alexander Tripp, Elizabeth Zechmeister
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Fostering diversity in political science careers is important. Undergraduate research experiences, coupled with an emphasis on career diversity, have the potential to increase relevant knowledge about and buoy tendencies toward pursuing a PhD among students from diverse backgrounds. This article describes components of a US National Science Foundation–funded Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program that highlighted career diversity. We find evidence of positive shifts in awareness of career opportunities for those with doctoral degrees alongside sustained interest in pursuing a PhD. We conclude that an emphasis on career diversity can be a useful component of efforts to shape students’ attitudes and inclinations toward a PhD.

Public Choice

Hybrid choice systems in small-n elections with sophisticated electorates
Iain McLean
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Faced with the classic paradoxes of voting, system designers have sometimes offered hybrid systems. The paper reviews Condorcet–Borda hybrids proposed by Daunou, Dodgson, Nanson, and Kemeny; and Borda-Balinski hybrids in use in at least one scientific academy. The justification of the hybrids is practical rather than theoretical, as they cannot escape the known features of their parent systems. In particular, as Condorcet showed in 1788, all Borda systems violate independence of irrelevant alternatives (in some formulation).
Political growth collapses
Francisco RodrĂ­guez, Patrick Imam
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The dynamics of political polarization and voting on economic issues: evidence from the Polish parliament, 2005–23
Jacek Lewkowicz, MichaƂ Sękowski, Jan FaƂkowski
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There have been growing concerns that political polarization is intensifying. These concerns, however, are primarily based on anecdotal evidence, aggregate measures related to political competition, or survey data that aim at eliciting public opinion. We adopt a different approach and look at polarization among the political elite. We examine the degree of consensus in parliamentary voting in the Polish parliament between 2005 and 2023. We find that political polarization was on the rise and that reaching agreement between the parties was more difficult when the votes concerned economic issues. Our results also demonstrate that voting in Parliament essentially became one-dimensional in that it was mainly driven by the government-opposition divide. We also document that voting against the party line was extremely rare, whether the MPs were in the government or an opposition party. This suggests that party discipline may be an important driver of political polarization.
Why so many representatives? Extending the cube root law to local assemblies
BenoĂźt Le Maux, Sonia Paty
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Research & Politics

Reevaluating ideological asymmetries in specific support for the Supreme Court
Kathryn Haglin, Soren Jordan, Alison Higgins Merrill, Joseph Daniel Ura
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Recent studies show the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Center undermined multiple forms of support for the Supreme Court. These findings are in tension with existing work on the ideological structure of specific support of the Supreme Court, which finds more tolerance for ideological disagreement among liberals than among conservatives. In this note, we replicate and extend Haglin et al. (2021), whose analysis ends in 2018. We find that asymmetries in the association between Supreme Court approval and Americans’ ideological disagreement with the Court have changed substantially and abruptly, depressing aggregate Supreme Court approval. However, this break in the structure of Supreme Court approval occurred in the year preceding Dobbs . These results indicate the roots of Americans’ turn against the Supreme Court run deeper than Dobbs and suggest a startling erosion in judicial legitimacy.
A survey experiment on post-Dobbs abortion bans
Laurel Elder, Steven Greene, Mary-Kate Lizotte
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In the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the American abortion policy landscape has been significantly altered. Through a novel survey experiment, we examine public opinion on 6-week versus 12-week abortion bans in this new context, testing whether 12-week bans are perceived as a more moderate position and garner greater support. Surprisingly, we find that Americans do not meaningfully distinguish between 6-week and 12-week bans. This suggests that attempts by some Republican officials to navigate the post-Dobbs landscape by proposing “moderate” abortion restrictions may be ineffective. However, we find that framing does matter: pro-life framing of bans increases support for candidates who endorse them, while pro-choice framing increases support for candidates who oppose them. Overall, our findings indicate that in the post-Dobbs era, the abortion debate has largely been flattened to a binary of “ban” versus “no ban,” rather than distinctions between ban timelines. As the post-Dobbs legal and political environment continues to evolve, our research provides valuable insights into how the public is responding to this new landscape of abortion politics in America.
ConflLlama: Domain-specific adaptation of large language models for conflict event classification
Shreyas Meher, Patrick T. Brandt
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We present ConflLlama, demonstrating how efficient fine-tuning of large language models can advance automated classification tasks in political science research. While classification of political events has traditionally relied on manual coding or rigid rule-based systems, modern language models offer the potential for more nuanced, context-aware analysis. However, deploying these models requires overcoming significant technical and resource barriers. We demonstrate how to adapt open-source language models to specialized political science tasks, using conflict event classification as our proof of concept. Through quantization and efficient fine-tuning techniques, we show state-of-the-art performance while minimizing computational requirements. Our approach achieves a macro-averaged AUC of 0.791 and a weighted F1-score of 0.753, representing a 37.6% improvement over the base model, with accuracy gains of up to 1463% in challenging classifications. We offer a roadmap for political scientists to adapt these methods to their own research domains, democratizing access to advanced NLP capabilities across the discipline. This work bridges the gap between cutting-edge AI developments and practical political science research needs, enabling broader adoption of these powerful analytical tools.
Documents and democracy: How classification shapes public confidence in democratic institutions
Sarah Maxey, Taryn Butler
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Access to and control over the classification process is a key component of executive power in the United States. This power is rooted in the public’s trust that the White House will safeguard national secrets and use its authority to protect national security. Secrecy, however, is in tension with democratic norms of transparency, making political backlash possible if leaders stretch their powers too far. What are the consequences of mishandled documents for the public’s trust in the government? We argue that the abuse of classified documents undermines not only presidential approval but also confidence in democratic institutions writ large. We test these expectations using survey experiments that vary information about the type of document classified, whether the White House handled top secret documents correctly, and evidence of mishandling by either civilian or military officials. The findings show that while the public generally tolerates secrecy and executive power, the consequences when the White House breaks this trust are wide-ranging and undermine public confidence in democracy as a whole.
Islamophobia in Western Europe is unrelated to religiosity but highly correlated with far right attitudes
Kai Arzheimer
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The far right’s relationship with religion has become a major focus of current research. Even in Western Europe, one of the most rapidly secularising areas of the world, far right actors claim to defend Christian values against the alleged threat of Islam and Muslim immigrants, a rhetorical strategy known as ‘Christianism’. Yet, little is known about how religiosity, Islamophobia, and populist far-right ideology are connected at the level of mass belief systems in Western Europe. Most of the literature is focused either on religiosity’s effect on voting or on the connection between religiosity and ethnic prejudice, without considering religiosity’s relationships with the wider spectrum of far-right ideology. The present article fills this gap by analysing survey data from Britain, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. It uses SEM to uncover the relationships between Christian religiosity on the one hand and Islamophobia and far-right attitudes on the other. The results are broadly similar across different contexts: religiosity is mostly unrelated to Islamophobia, nativism, right-wing authoritarianism, and populism. Conversely, Islamophobia overlaps considerably with both nativism and authoritarianism: people who perceive immigration as a threat and favour strict laws and harsh enforcement also tend to reject Islam, but not for religious reasons. This pattern is compatible with the strategy of Christianism, which is largely devoid of religiosity, yet facilitates the “othering” of Muslims as a cultural out-group. It also helps to explain why there is no genuine, electorally relevant religious far right in Western Europe.

The Journal of Politics

State Action and Moral Attitudes toward Sexual Consent
Eli Baltzersen, Francesca R. Jensenius, Øyvind SÞraas Skorge
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