I checked 18 political science journals on Wednesday, September 16, 2026 using the Crossref API. For the period September 09 to September 15, I found 27 new paper(s) in 11 journal(s).

British Journal of Political Science

Policy as a Bargaining Outcome: Coalition Leverage and Pledge Fulfillment
Mark A. Kayser, Jochen Rehmert, Petra Schleiter
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Which parties can deliver the policies that they promised? In multiparty contexts, parties must bargain to realize electoral promises. Prior work shows that parties influence policy change by using resources such as legislative seats, ministerial posts, and agenda, veto, and policing powers, while only theoretical work considers parties’ bargaining leverage from potentially changing the government. But for parties, fulfilling pledges (not incremental policy change) is paramount and they use their full leverage to achieve it. We offer and test a more complete and politically relevant account of multiparty policymaking that includes parties’ bargaining leverage through coalition options and focuses on the realization of distinct policy promises. We estimate regression analyses of pledge fulfillment in nine parliamentary democracies from 1974 to 2011 as well as local average treatment effects across a discontinuity and find that parties’ bargaining leverage from potential coalition change trumps conventional explanations for policy outcomes.
Reshaping Belonging: National Identity Change in Post-Referendum Britain
Jac M. Larner, James David Griffiths, Daniel Wincott
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National identity is usually treated as a stable driver of political behaviour, yet we know little about whether it responds to major political events. We examine how two pivotal electoral events – the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum and the 2016 EU Referendum – were associated with changes in citizens’ sense of national belonging. Using the 2014–2025 British Election Study Internet Panel, we show that both referendums precipitated significant shifts in national identification, primarily among those on the losing side. Post-referendum changes in Scotland proved temporary, but among Remain voters British identification fell substantially and remained depressed through 2025, with the gap between winners and losers widening over time. These findings suggest national identity is more event-sensitive than commonly assumed, and that divisive referendums may leave durable marks on how citizens in multinational states relate to the state by eroding shared national sentiment.
The Audience of Coalition Bargaining: Voter Reactions to Portfolio Allocation
Ida B. Hjermitslev, Mathias Wessel Tromborg
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Obtaining portfolios is one of the most important pay-offs that parties receive from getting into office. Accordingly, we know a lot about how portfolios are distributed between coalition partners, but surprisingly little about how voters react to these distributional outcomes. We address this research gap both theoretically and empirically. Theoretically, we argue that voters use cues from the quantitative and qualitative portfolio distributions to evaluate coalition partners’ competence in negotiations, which in turn shapes party support. Empirically, we use original experimental and panel survey data from the 2022 Danish general election. We find that voters infer negotiation competence from the number, power, and party-specific salience of the portfolios a party obtains. We also demonstrate that many voters paid attention to the real-world negotiation outcome and withdrew their support for the parties they perceived handled the negotiations less competently.

Electoral Studies

Explaining uneven American support for electoral democracy: How partisanship conditions the winner-loser gap
Miles T. Armaly, Steven D. Schaaf
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Polling and parliamentary representation: Strategic voting in the 2025 German federal election
Werner Krause, Jan Philipp Thomeczek, Aiko Wagner
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European Journal of Political Research

Many shades of climate skepticism: Exploring climate change attitudes among local political elites in Germany
Anna-Sophie Heinze, Anne KĂŒppers
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Climate change – and skepticism toward it – is increasingly present not only among far-right parties but also across the political spectrum in more nuanced forms. This article examines the diverse climate attitudes of local political elites, who play a key role in the implementation of climate policy. We develop an analytical framework to assess varying degrees of climate skepticism, with particular attention to a broader ‘gray zone’ of attitudes that combine acceptance of anthropogenic climate change with doubts about its implications, responsibilities, or policy responses. We empirically examine the views of municipal council members in Saxony and Thuringia – two eastern German states characterized by salient climate and energy policy conflicts and ideologically competitive party systems. Using original web survey data, our findings reveal a wide spectrum of partial climate skepticism extending beyond the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and into parts of the political mainstream. Moreover, we identify substantial variation across different dimensions of climate skepticism as well as significant intra-party heterogeneity. Overall, parties are not monolithic actors on climate-related attitudes but internally diverse organizations in which multiple positions coexist. Understanding these local-level attitudes is crucial for assessing the political feasibility of climate policy implementation. By mapping the ‘gray zone’ of climate skepticism among local political elites, this study contributes to a more fine-grained understanding of climate attitudes within and across party lines.

Party Politics

Contesting reputational advantages: Issue ownership and negative campaigning
Martin Haselmayer, Marcelo Jenny
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Research on issue-based negative campaigning typically emphasizes issue salience and parties’ own issue strengths. This paper shifts the focus to the targets of attacks. We argue that negative campaigning on policy issues is systematically structured by the competence of the opponent, as parties seek to challenge rivals’ reputational advantages within specific issue domains. Using a dyadic dataset of party press releases from five Austrian national election campaigns (2006–2019), combined with survey-based measures of perceived issue competence, we show that parties are significantly more likely to direct negative messages at highly competent opponents. In contrast, sender-party competence and voter issue salience do not consistently shape targeting patterns. These findings suggest that issue-based negative campaigning is driven less by parties’ own issue strengths than by their opponents’ relative standing, highlighting how attacks serve as a strategy of reputational contestation in issue competition.
The personal efficacy of party youth wing members
Henrik Bech Seeberg, Duncan McDonnell, Sofia Ammassari, Niklas Bolin, Reinhard Heinisch, Ann-Cathrine Jungar, Marco Valbruzzi, Carsten Wegscheider, Annika Werner
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Although young people are said to be increasingly withdrawing from participation in political parties, some still join because they believe they can influence them to achieve change. We examine this sense of personal efficacy among contemporary youth wing members and ask: how is youth wing members’ personal efficacy associated with their activity levels and membership length, and with intra-party democracy and youth wing integration into the party? To do so, we combine the Political Party Database with data from the YOUMEM project, the largest cross-national survey of youth wing members conducted to date, covering ∌3600 members of 12 party youth wings in six democracies. We find that higher levels of personal efficacy are associated in particular with individuals being more active; being in a youth wing which is well integrated into the party; and in a context of strong intra-party democracy. Our results thus suggest how parties can foster young members’ personal efficacy and nurture democratically engaged citizens.
Rain, temperature, and votes: Weather effects on electoral participation in Argentina
Fernando Antonio Ignacio GonzĂĄlez
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Compulsory voting was designed to make electoral participation immune to individual costs, yet this paper shows that rain on election day still keeps Argentine voters home. Exploiting quasi-random variation in precipitation across 526 departments and 14 national election days between 2011 and 2023, I estimate two-way fixed effects models with department and election fixed effects using ERA5 reanalysis data matched to department centroids. Each additional millimeter of voting-hours precipitation (8am–6pm) reduces turnout by 0.08 percentage points ( p < 0.01); on a day of average rainfall this implies about a 0.2 percentage-point reduction. The estimate survives an extensive identification battery: balance tests, a 9-day placebo window with horse races, grid-cell clustering, and a validation of the reanalysis data against independent rain-gauge stations. Using newly constructed vote shares by ideological bloc, I find that rainfall does not bias the partisan outcome—it leaves the incumbent vote share, the left/Peronist bloc, and the left–right balance unchanged, in contrast to the partisan effects documented under voluntary voting in Europe—and it has no effect on blank ballots, null votes, or fragmentation. Weather thus operates through the extensive margin (whether to vote) rather than the intensive margin (how to vote). If even a century-old compulsory voting institution cannot fully insulate turnout from weather shocks, institutional reforms such as postal voting, extended hours, or remote electronic voting deserve consideration even where voting is mandatory.

Political Analysis

Turning Hazard Models Inside Out
David Melamed, Jack G. R. Wippell, Eric W. Schoon, Ronald L. Breiger
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Regression Inside Out (RIO) describes a set of related methods based on a decomposition of regression coefficients by individual cases. In this article, we offer three important extensions of RIO: 1) we generalize RIO to any model for which linear predictors are estimated; 2) we introduce an adapted bootstrap approach for determining whether case-level contributions differ from the baseline average contribution for cases; and 3) we describe how RIO is related to model diagnostics, particularly DFBETA. To illustrate the value added of these extensions, we apply RIO to a published example of the Cox proportional hazard model exploring factors associated with democratic durability.
Get Out the Volunteer: Encouraging Diverse Political Party Activism
Jonne Kamphorst, Horacio Larreguy
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Political parties in advanced democracies face a dual challenge: fewer citizens are willing to volunteer, and those who remain active are disproportionately older and male. This is troubling given the central role that volunteers play in campaigns and party processes. Whether party leaders can recruit a larger and more diverse activist base remains an open question. We partnered with a major party in the Netherlands and conducted two field experiments before the 2021 general and 2022 municipal elections, targeting over 35,000 party members. The party randomized whether members received a personal call, an email or both. Results show that calls—where members could voice their opinions—increased volunteer sign-up rates (83% in Study 1 and 361% in Study 2), especially among younger members. By contrast, emails had no effect. These findings clarify mixed evidence in the literature, suggesting that voice opportunities are key to expanding and diversifying the activist base.

Political Behavior

Left Behind or Left In? Party Ideology and the Gender Gap in Candidate Persistence
Agustin Vallejo
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The Limits of Incumbent Blame Games in Times of Crisis: Experimental Evidence from Electoral Autocracy
Zeki Sarigil, AyƟenur Dal
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This study investigates how blame-attributing crisis frames influence support for incumbents in an electoral authoritarian context, focusing on TĂŒrkiye. It asks how, to what extent, and under what conditions incumbents’ blame frames shape public attitudes toward the government. The study examines four crisis types (i.e., global warming , earthquake , economic collapse , and pandemic ) and compares the effects of religious , conspiratorial , and scientific framing across these contexts. Drawing on original data from seven pre-survey focus groups and a nationwide face-to-face survey experiment with 3,562 respondents, the findings indicate that the independent effects of blame frames are generally limited. However, the effectiveness of religion-based blame framing is highly context dependent. Compared with climate and economic crises, its estimated effects are more favorable in crises characterized by high uncertainty and relatively low perceived governmental responsibility, such as earthquake and pandemic. These findings suggest that the effectiveness of blame attribution is conditioned by the nature of the crisis itself. The study contributes to research on crisis framing, political accountability, and authoritarian durability.
From Antagonistic Talk to Cooperative Acts: The Effect of Polarization Cues on Newspaper Audiences
Mike Farjam, Hendrik Meyer
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Do media depictions of a ‘polarized society’ merely describe division or actually deepen it? We report two laboratory experiments in Germany (Study1 $$N=302$$ ; Study2 $$N=295$$ ). After reading authentic newspaper articles in which brief polarization cues were experimentally included versus omitted, participants (i) completed standard affective- and ideological-polarization measures and (ii) played incentivized Dictator, Ultimatum, and Trust Games with ideological out-group partners. Polarization cues increased both affective polarization and ideological extremity. Behavioral responses, however, were mixed. In the Dictator Game, where the recipient cannot respond, treated participants shared less with the out-group. In the Trust Game, characterized by mutual dependence and potential efficiency gains, treated participants sent more to out-group partners. Ultimatum behavior, where interdependence is partial, showed weaker and less consistent shifts. Taken together, polarization cues reliably heighten perceived division but do not uniformly translate into behavioral antagonism: even after cues that increase self-reported polarization, participants can still cooperate with ideological opponents when cooperation is perceived as mutually beneficial.

Political Geography

Generic title: Not a research article
Corrigendum to “The border security economy in the English Channel: Small boats, racism and late imperialism” [Political Geography 130 2026 103603]
Joe Turner, Arshad Isakjee, Lucy Mayblin, Thom Davies, Tesfalem Habte Yemane
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Disjuncture by default: Arrhythmic life-worlds and intergenerational injustice
Rebecca Collins
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Capital accumulation and territorial control in West Papua's offshore gas industry
Naish Gawen
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The sacred imagination of geographical spaces: The geopolitical spiritualization of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Hassan Noorali, A. Mani Irannejad, Virginie Mamadouh
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Green hydrogen in the Global South: Politics, spaces, and transformations – An introduction
Eric Cezne, Tobias Kalt, Adryane Gorayeb
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Political Psychology

Working hard to belong: Meritocratic ideology and deportation sentiments among Latino and Asian Americans
Nathan K. Chan, Jin X. Goh
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Why do some Latino and Asian Americans support conservative policies that may discriminate against them? Elaborating on system justification theory, we argue that ideologies such as meritocracy perpetuate the status quo by placating marginalized groups and assuaging their emotional concerns regarding their unfair treatment. This research examined the extent to which endorsing meritocratic ideology is associated with deportation policy attitudes and the degree of emotional concern about deportation among Latino and Asian Americans. Using data from the 2024 and 2020 Collaborative Multiracial Post‐Election Surveys, we find that higher meritocratic ideology predicted greater support for deportation policies and lower emotional concern about deportation for Latino and Asian Americans. This research demonstrates that Latino and Asian Americans who have ingrained the ethos of meritocracy are more likely to support conservative policies and develop sentiments that work against the interests of their communities.
Partisans misperceive and are influenced by dynamic norms
Trystan Loustau, Ashley Fabrizio, Liane Young, Jordan Wylie, Stylianos Syropoulos
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Perceptions of social norms, and how those norms change over time, play a central role in shaping how people understand and respond to political divides. We developed and iteratively refined dynamic‐norm messages about bipartisan attitude change to reduce divisive outparty perceptions and attitudes in a US context. We first identified real‐world issues that gained support over time among both Democrats and Republicans and were judged as believable. Study 1 documented systematic misperceptions of attitude change across a range of social issues and linked these misperceptions to colder outparty feelings. We then tested intervention messages that adapted standard static‐norm templates with the addition of information about change over time (dynamic norm; Study 2). This intervention increased expectations of future common ground but did not reliably improve downstream outparty attitudes. Next, we tested a refined intervention message that isolated dynamic norm information (Study 3). The refined dynamic norm message increased expected common ground and expected future feelings of belonging among the outparty and was associated with small but reliable increases in outparty warmth and positive outparty impressions relative to control. These results suggest that emphasizing trajectories of public opinion without highlighting current partisan gaps may be a useful strategy for reducing polarization.

Public Choice

Review of Douglas W. Allen and Bryan Leonard. 2025. “Why the rush: an institutional economic analysis of homesteading and the settlement of the west”
F. Andrew Hanssen
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A theory of conspiracy theories
Serhan Cevik
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Research & Politics

Reassurance and betrayal: Cross-ethnic appeals by party leaders in divided societies lead to asymmetric voter reactions
John Garry
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Why do conciliatory political appeals sometimes polarise rather than moderate electoral competition in divided societies? Existing accounts of consociational power-sharing explain how hardline parties can become credible negotiators, but they say less about how voters respond when the leaders of displaced moderate parties attempt to broaden support beyond their traditional community. I argue that leaders’ cross-ethnic appeals function as reassurance signalling: they reduce perceived threat to the outgroup while simultaneously weakening perceptions of defensive credibility among co-ethnics. Voters therefore update leader evaluations in opposite directions relative to a party’s inherited reputation. Using survey data from the 2022 Northern Ireland Assembly election, I compare leader evaluations to party baselines across identity groups. A leader who emphasised cross-community accommodation was evaluated more favourably by the opposing community and less favourably by co-ethnics, while leaders emphasising intra-group defence did not exhibit this pattern. The findings suggest moderation in divided societies redistributes support across groups rather than uniformly increasing approval, providing a behavioural mechanism within post-tribune party competition.

The Journal of Politics

What's in a name? Name recognition, place-based identities, and candidate success
Arndt Leininger, Tilko Swalve
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Anti-Environmental Signals and Deforestation: Evidence from Brazil
Gustavo Magalhães de Oliveira, Elías Cisneros, Jorge Sellare, Jan Börner
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The seniority ceiling: Why some immigrants struggle to rise in political office
Olle Folke, Johanna Rickne
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The Politics of Criminalized Places: Aggressive Policing and Political Mobilization
Daniel Naftel
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