I checked 18 political science journals on Wednesday, June 10, 2026 using the Crossref API. For the period June 03 to June 09, I found 32 new paper(s) in 13 journal(s).

American Journal of Political Science

The demand for elections under autocracy: Regime approval and the elimination of local elections in Russia
Quintin H. Beazer, Noah Buckley, Ora John Reuter
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Most contemporary autocracies hold elections. Does the public value these elections? If so, do they value them enough to punish incumbents that subvert elections? We examine this question in contemporary Russia, examining whether individuals withdraw support from regime leaders when local elections are eliminated. Over the past 25 years, most Russian cities have replaced their directly elected mayors with appointed executives. This paper uses the largest data set on public opinion ever assembled on Russia—over 400,000 responses drawn from two decades by Russia's top polling agencies—to analyze how the elimination of elections in Russia's large cities has affected public attitudes toward the authorities. Using a difference‐in‐differences design, we find that election cancellation reduces support for President Vladimir Putin. This effect is stronger in settings with histories of robust electoral competition. This suggests that the public is more likely to punish incumbents for eliminating elections when individuals have experience with competitive elections.

American Political Science Review

The Expressive Duty to Vote
CÉCILE FABRE
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Standard arguments for the moral duty to vote in nationwide elections or referendums appeal to citizens’ general duty of reciprocity not to free ride on the provision of the public goods of democratic governance and its benefits, to a nonreciprocal duty to maintain and strengthen democratic institutions, or to a general duty to bring about just outcomes. In this article, I argue that citizens are under an expressive duty to vote, as grounded in a more general duty to manifest support for just and democratic laws, and for democratic institutions as the instantiation of the requirement to treat one another with equal concern and respect. Even if (in circumstances I elucidate) citizens are morally permitted not to vote for either of the options on offer, it does not follow that they are morally permitted to abstain: sometimes, participating in the poll and voiding one’s ballot is, on expressive grounds, the right thing to do.
The Domestic Sources of International Trust
MICHAEL A. GOLDFIEN, MICHAEL F. JOSEPH, ROSEANNE W. MCMANUS
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How do states overcome mistrust? Scholars argue that costly foreign policy signals build trust. But when trust is low, such as during rivalries, states are unwilling to use these signals for fear of being cheated. We argue that domestic policies can also build trust by revealing information about a state’s likelihood of cooperating internationally when there is a correlation between domestic and international preferences. We further argue that domestic policies have a distinct advantage: the value states accrue from them depends less on international reciprocation. As a result, domestic choices can reassure counterparts at moments when trust is so low that costly international signals appear prohibitively risky. We test the implications of our theory in case studies of the Cold War’s end and United States–South Korea trust-building post-coup, illuminating several phenomena the current literature struggles to explain: initial trust-building between enduring rivals, asymmetric trust-building, and trust-building through illiberal domestic policies.

Electoral Studies

Does the measure of party system size matter with incomplete election returns? The case of Ireland
Heather Stoll, Vincent Munley, Paul Redmond
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The dynamics of tactical voting: What explains repeated tactical voting behavior?
Lucas NĂșñez
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The psychological basis of the urban–rural divide: Evidence from Germany
Antonia Lang, Kai Arzheimer
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Socialising effects of recession and issue salience on environmental attitudes
Hironao Yoda
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European Journal of Political Research

Gender differences in donating to political parties – Evidence from reporting data
Jana Schwenk
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Parties in all European countries at least partially rely on private donations to finance their activities, but gender gaps in donations remain underexplored. Investigating gaps in donation frequencies and amounts, as well as which parties are likely to receive donations from women, is crucial, as parties represent the interests of donors more than the interests of non-donors, opening an avenue of potential underrepresentation of women’s interests. This study addresses this gap, leveraging data from party finance reports from Italy, the UK, and Finland over time to investigate gender gaps in donation amounts, frequencies, and recipient parties. The results highlight that while gender gaps in donation frequency exist, these differences in how often women and men donate to parties do not directly translate into how much money they donate. Rather, there is large variation in donation amounts over time and across countries. Particularly in Finland, a highly gender-equal country, differences in donation amounts are marginal. Finally, the expectation that green and left parties are most likely to receive donations from women does not hold across all cases – while in all three countries green parties are most likely to receive donations from women, right-wing parties are not the least likely to receive donations from women in Finland and Italy.
Risky appeals: The electoral consequences of group-targeted campaign pledges
Isabelle Guinaudeau, Elisa Deiss-Helbig, Theres Matthieß
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Parties frequently target campaign promises on specific social groups, yet we lack evidence on whether such targeting yields greater electoral pay-offs than broad-based universalistic pledges. We address this gap with a pre-registered survey experiment fielded in Germany in 2024 ( N = 3,500). We expose respondents to a fictional electoral campaign scenario featuring posters promising additional public spending either to the general population (broad-based pledge), or to a specific group – parents, pensioners, or rural residents (group-targeted pledge) – and examine how voters respond. We theorize that group targeting should raise the salience of party-group linkages and therefore boost support among voters who (1) belong to the target group, (2) identify with this group, and/or (3) view it as deserving. At the same time, it may alienate others who perceive such pledges as unfair. We find no consistent evidence that group-targeted pledges outperform broad-based ones in generating electoral support – even among intended beneficiaries. Instead, responses to targeted appeals are strongly moderated by group belonging and perception: support remains stable or slightly lower among intended beneficiaries, but drops substantially among other respondents. These patterns suggest that rather than securing net electoral gains, group-targeted promises can provoke exclusion-driven losses that outweigh limited ingroup appeal. More broadly, the study highlights how identity and deservingness perceptions shape voter reactions to realistic campaign pledges – and how even appeals to normatively ‘deserving’ or majoritarian groups may risk narrowing rather than broadening electoral support.
‘Get the shot, or else!’ Policy coercion and institutional trust are compensatory for vaccine uptake
Alexandru D. Moise, Evelyne HĂŒbscher
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What are the determinants of individual uptake of vaccination? Using original data from a survey fielded in September 2021 in Germany and the United Kingdom, this study looks at the impact of three factors on individual vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic. In a first study using observational data, we look at individual trust in institutions and political ideology. In a second study, based on experimental data, we assess the impact restrictions for unvaccinated individuals in the form of ‘green pass’ policies have on the propensity to get vaccinated. Results from the first study show that trust in institutions and ideology are associated with vaccination uptake. Results from the survey experiment indicate that the ‘green pass’ policy scenario significantly increased willingness to get a booster shot for Germans, but not for UK respondents, due to a ceiling effect in the United Kingdom. We further ask whether the effects of trust and policy coercion ‘amplify’ or ‘compensate’ each other. We find that trust has a ‘compensation’ effect, whereby individuals not yet vaccinated are considerably more likely to do so if they trust political institutions. Trust also compensates for other policy measures, as trusting individuals are highly likely to get vaccinated with or without the ‘green pass’ policy incentive, whereas low-trust individuals are more likely under the ‘green pass’ scenario.
The watermelon effect: How immigration policies affect migrant political support
Sergi Pardos-Prado
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Do immigration policies impact long-term political integration? I argue that the interplay between admission requirements and post-admission rights of migrants is highly consequential in shaping key democratic attitudes of increasingly diverse societies. Migrant selectivity boosts democratic satisfaction and political trust only when combined with inclusive internal regulations, such as high security of status, easier pathways to settlement, and social rights. Analyzing Commonwealth migrants in the UK after WWII through difference-in-differences and interrupted time series models, I find that ‘watermelon regimes’ (strict entry with inclusive post-entry rights) show lasting positive effects. Cross-national analyses with European data support the findings that watermelon regimes outperform free movement and stricter policies. Selection and context mechanisms explain why watermelon regimes enhance migrants’ economic integration, leading to political support. The benefits and costs of adopting watermelon regimes are discussed.

Journal of Experimental Political Science

A Framework to Assess the Persuasion Risks Large Language Model Chatbots Pose to Democratic Societies
Zhongren Chen, Joshua Kalla, Quan Le, Shinpei Nakamura-Sakai, Jasjeet Sekhon, Ruixiao Wang
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We investigate whether large language models (LLMs) threaten democracy through their persuasive capabilities. Using two survey experiments ( N = 10,417) and real-world simulations, we compare the cost-effectiveness of LLM chatbots against traditional campaign tactics, taking into account both the “receive” and “accept” steps in the persuasion process. Our design advances prior research by assessing extended human-LLM interactions and measuring short- and long-term effects across three political domains. We find that while LLMs are comparably persuasive to campaign ads once seen, real-world impact depends on both message reception and acceptance. Simulations estimate LLM-based persuasion costs $48–$75 per voter versus $100 for traditional methods. However, traditional methods currently scale more effectively. While LLMs do not yet offer substantially greater potential for large-scale persuasion, this may shift as capabilities improve and techniques for scalable exposure become feasible.
Outsiders at the Ballot Box: Integration, Discrimination, and Muslims’ Electoral Behavior in Europe
Odelia Oshri, Reut Itzkovitch-Malka, Guy Mor-Lan, Shaul R. Shenhav
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Do exclusionary signals push ethnic minorities out of politics or mobilize them to politically act together? We study this question with a novel survey experiment among Muslim Turks in Germany that randomized videos of anti-Muslim hate-crime reports (social exclusion) and of an anti-Muslim far-right party’s electoral gains (political exclusion). We find that both treatments increase intended political participation, heighten in-group solidarity, and shift vote intentions toward left-wing parties. Crucially, these effects are concentrated among highly integrated Muslims, the very group that prevailing theories of integration predict to be least inclined toward ethnic voting. This pattern suggests that integration is not only a matter of individual resources or time in the host country; it also depends on how the majority treats minority communities. These findings highlight the role of public rejection signals in shaping political behavior, underscoring that even well-integrated citizens may mobilize collectively and support parties they perceive as more protective.

Party Politics

Book review: The Power of the Powerless - How to Overcome a Crises and Defend Ourselves Against Fascism: Strategies Against Resignation and a Shift to the Right [Keine Macht der Ohnmacht: Wie wir Krisen bewĂ€ltigen und uns gegen Faschismus wehren – Strategien gegen Resignation und Rechtsruck] QuentMatthias, The Power of the Powerless - How to Overcome a Crises and Defend Ourselves Against Fascism: Strategies Against Resignation and a Shift to the Right [Keine Macht der Ohnmacht: Wie wir Krisen bewĂ€ltigen und uns gegen Faschismus wehren – Strategien gegen Resignation und Rechtsruck], Munich: Piper Press, 272 pp. (hbk) ISBN: 978-3-492-07470-4, €22. E-Book €21,99.
Thomas Klikauer
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Book Review: Divergent democracy: How policy positions came to dominate party competition KrimmelKatherine, Divergent Democracy: How Policy Positions Came to Dominate Party Competition. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2024. $54.89 (Hardcover), xxii+269 pp. ISBN (e-book) 9780691258065.
Yuan Huang
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Book review: Famous but misunderstood: Three essays on Maurice Duverger’s political science NovákMiroslav, Famous but Misunderstood: Three Essays on Maurice Duverger’s Political Science, Prague: Karolinum, 2026, EUR 21 (pbk.)/ EUR 26 (ebook), 162 pp., ISBN: 978-80-246-6212-1/978-80-246-6230-5.
Roman Chytilek
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Political Behavior

The Role of Social and Symbolic Capital in Electoral Politics: How Social Networks and Parliamentary Debates Influence Re-election in Uganda
Anja Osei, Robin SchÀdler, Francis Kibirige
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Many African legislatures experience high rates of electoral turnover. But who gets re-elected and why? In this article, we employ a Bourdieuan framework to explore how different endowments of legislators with various forms of capital (economic, social, cultural, and symbolic) affect electoral success in Uganda. Using an original dataset with biographical, attitudinal, relational, and performance-related information on Members of the 10th Ugandan Parliament (2016–2021), we model incumbents’ we find that re-election is consistently associated with legislators’ embeddedness in intra-parliamentary discussion networks and access to party funding. Parliamentary speech-making is positively related to re-election, but the association is not robust once other forms of capital are jointly considered; speech activity matters most among more highly embedded MPs. By contrast, our measure of constituency service seems unrelated to incumbent success. Our findings suggest that non-clientelist strategies play a stronger role for legislative success than currently acknowledged in the literature.

Political Geography

Building a dam without water? Unraveling paradoxes and modernization discourses in Morocco, the case of El Hajeb Province (SaĂŻss Plain, Morocco)
Imane Messaoudi, Christian Bréthaut
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Political Psychology

Is sortition the ideal? Examining public reactions to climate assemblies
Anthony Kevins, Joshua Robison
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Policy interventions to address global warming have been politically controversial despite the scientific consensus that action is needed. Many environmental groups have thus demanded the use of deliberative mini‐publics (DMPs) or “climate assemblies” to give citizens direct influence over policymaking. However, if these assemblies are to be effective at overcoming political gridlock, then their recommendations must affect policy. We investigate the conditions under which the public would support assemblies with this type of power. Our focus lies on how information about the selection procedures used by an assembly, and hence the identity of participants, affects public perceptions of mini‐publics. While DMPs sometimes use random samples from the population, they also frequently use samples created by purposively sampling from sub‐groups that may be particularly impacted by the policy in question. What effect does purposive sampling have on support for DMPs and their recommendations? We use data from two pre‐registered survey experiments in the United Kingdom to examine this question. Contrary to expectations derived from theories of procedural fairness, we find that DMPs that involve targeted recruitment are associated with heightened public support relative to DMPs that utilize pure random sampling.
Birth of a scapegoat: An actor‐affect‐affordance model of symbolic attribution in the digital age
Jack Gabriel Risien Wippell
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How do scapegoating narratives emerge, diffuse, and solidify within digital media ecosystems? This paper introduces an actor‐affect‐affordance (3A) model to explain how complex social problems become symbolically attributed to marginalized groups. This framework is applied to the rise of the “trans terrorism” narrative that followed the 2023 Nashville school shooting, which framed mass shootings as the product of an alleged “gender ideology epidemic,” focusing on discourse within a right‐wing alternative social media platform where this narrative in part crystallized. Findings offer new insight into the construction of exclusionary identities in the digital age, opening several avenues for future scholarship at the intersection of political psychology, digital communication, and cultural sociology.
The limits of appraisals theory for political emotions: Evidence from two U.S. surveys
Isabella Rebasso, Gijs Schumacher, Matthijs Rooduijn
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Emotions, such as anger and anxiety, play a central role in political behavior and are extensively studied by political scientists. However, political science has largely adopted psychological theories of emotions without testing their core assumptions in political contexts. In this paper, we focus on appraisal theory and test whether emotions in response to political events follow distinct appraisal patterns and whether the underlying theoretical models accurately predict emotions in political contexts. Across two surveys, participants recalled emotional experiences from either the general or political domain, labeled their emotions, and rated the event along 18 appraisal dimensions. We trained several models to predict emotion families based on the reported appraisals. In the general domain, discrete emotions have distinct appraisal profiles and we can predict them based on the reported appraisals with high accuracy. In the political domain, negative emotion families (anger, anxiety, despair, guilt) have overlapping appraisal profiles, and models perform consistently worse when predicting these emotions. Our findings challenge the assumption that emotions function similarly in political and general domains and suggest that appraisal‐based models do not consistently capture political emotions. To understand how emotions arise in response to politics, we need theoretical frameworks that account for these contextual differences.

Political Science Research and Methods

How do economic and geospatial factors shape conflict? A Bayesian spatial risk approach to Nigeria
Juan José Villar-Roldån, Aida Galiano, Juan Manuel Martín-Álvarez
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Economic and geospatial drivers of conflict are established, yet aggregate analyses often obscure subnational risk patterns. This study develops a high-resolution risk methodology for fragile, resource-rich states by combining spatial econometrics with the greed-grievance framework. Using a Bayesian approach based on integrated nested Laplace approximation and stochastic partial differential equations, we examine how socio-economic development, natural resources, energy infrastructure, and 14 spatial variables shape four conflict typologies in Nigeria between 1997 and 2023. Results show that wealth reduces conflict risk, while ethnic fractionalization and proximity to resources have actor-specific effects. Petroleum endowments and power infrastructure increase organized rebel and militia activity, whereas ethnic dynamics mainly drive riots. Predictive risk maps support infrastructure planning, supply chain risk mitigation, and targeted stabilization policies.

PS: Political Science & Politics

Can We Stand Together? Measuring Racial Avoidance in Shared Spaces
Joshua Corona
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This study documents a behavioral dimension of the persistent contradiction between democratic ideals and racial exclusion by examining patterns of everyday spatial avoidance among minoritized groups in shared public spaces. By drawing on systematic observational data from 428 dyadic encounters on Seattle public transit platforms, the analysis identifies patterns of behavioral segregation that may bear on the prospects for multiracial cooperation. Results reveal consistent asymmetrical avoidance: East Asian and Hispanic individuals maintain 18–19 additional feet from Black first-arrivers, a pattern that Black individuals do not reciprocate. In contrast, interaction models show that Black–Black dyads have less interpersonal distance that contrasts with broader aversion by outgroups. By shifting from attitudinal to behavioral measures, this study captures intergroup dynamics that surveys may not detect.
The Effects of Bias Mitigation Prompts and Gender Education on Student Evaluations of Teaching
Dongfang Gaozhao, Li-Yin Liu, Christopher Brough
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Despite growing attention to gender biases in student evaluations of teaching (SET) in political science, research on effective mitigation strategies remains limited. Given the reliance on SET as a dominant measure of teaching quality in higher education, this study investigates the impact of short-term bias mitigation prompts and prolonged exposure to gender-focused topics on SET. Using a survey experiment conducted in general education social science courses at a mid-sized, Midwestern nonprofit Catholic university, we found that bias mitigation prompts encouraged greater self-reflection, prompting students to critically evaluate their instructors and their own performance. This intervention appeared to reduce the advantages previously afforded to men instructors. However, exposure to gender topics revealed a complex dynamic: whereas gender-related courses are associated with higher SET ratings overall, this positive effect is significantly weakened for women instructors. Women teaching gender-related courses receive lower evaluations than would be expected based on the separate effects of course topic and instructor gender. Our findings underscore the complex interplay among faculty members’ gender, gender education, and persistent stereotypes.

Public Choice

Loose bricks in the wall: Underground press and political opposition in non-democracies
Olga Tcaci
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This study utilizes locations of underground publications, known as samizdat , to analyze the impact of access to political knowledge on shaping institutional change in the German Democratic Republic during 1989–1990. Survival analysis reveals that regions with greater underground press activity were significantly more likely to experience protests following the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989. This delay can be attributed to the increased repression of dissent. However, support for regime change did not necessarily translate into support for rapid German reunification, as evidenced by the voting results of the 1990 democratic elections. Although samizdat did not appear to coordinate the initial protests, it played an informational role in shaping preferences toward gradual institutional change. Finally, in addition to its information function, underground press activities were instrumental in forming opposition that challenged the non-democratic regime, thereby determining the onset of democratization.
Ethnic bias, commitment and public good provisioning
Sukanta Bhattacharya, T C Shinali
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Why Bloomington is not in Virginia: Contrasting the social ontologies, methodologies, and governance theories of the Ostroms and Buchanan
Massimo Cervesato
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Political connections, contract imperfections, and firm outsourcing
Yi Zhang, Hein Roelfsema
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The promotion club
Shuo Chen, Xinyu Fan, Zhitao Zhu
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The Journal of Politics

Self-Fulfilling Prophecies at the Voting Booth: Evidence from Polling Effects around Electoral Thresholds
Werner Krause, Christina Gahn
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Representation Behind Closed Doors: The Effect of Electing Women Mayors on Domestic Violence
Maya Dalton, Giancarlo Visconti
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Risk and Responsibility: Climate Disasters and IMF Conditionality
Sabrina B. Arias, Richard Clark
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