Do elections (still) matter? Mandate, institutions and policies in Western Europe Emiliano Grossman (Centre d’Étude Européennes / Sciences Po)Isabelle Guinaudeau (Centre Émile Durkheim / Sciences Po Bordeaux) Are election campaigns relevant to policymaking, as they should in a democracy? This book sheds new light on this central democratic concern based on an ambitious study of democratic […] Read more

Making Sense of Electoral Behaviour in Seniors’ Residences Florence Vallée-Dubois (Université de Montréal) Does placing polling stations in seniors’ residences have a positive impact on turnout? Does it benefit parties that are more popular among older citizens? I explore these questions using original data on electoral outcomes in seniors’ residences during the 2015 and 2019 […] Read more

What about modes? Differences Between Modes in the 21st Century’s Electoral Polls  Claire Durand (Université de Montréal)Timothy P. Johnson (University of Illinois at Chicago) The 21st Century has seen an important transition in survey modes used for electoral polls. This transition has not ended yet. It is thus possible to examine differences between modes used in […] Read more

Do Neighborhoods Empower or Disenfranchise? A Longitudinal Analysis of the Effects of Spatial Disadvantage and Ethnoracial Segregation on Voter Registration in France Haley McAvay (University of York)Pavlos Vasilopoulos (University of York) Prior research from different national contexts indicates persistent ethnic/racial disparities in  political participation. Studies have sought to explain these disparities by focusing on  compositional differences […] Read more

Vox Populi, Vox Dei? Alienation, Mobilisation and Models of Democracy Miriam Sorace (University of Kent)Diane Bolet (Policy Institute, King’s College London) Attitudes towards democracy are gaining salience, as recent populist parties’ successes, and the rise of anti-system behaviours attest. This study innovatively adjudicates between cognitive mobilisation and political alienation explanations of preferences towards elitist, representative, […] Read more

The Shadow of Confucianism: Traditional Values Condition the Negativity Bias among East Asians Baowen Liang (Université de Montréal) The negativity bias theory contends that people pay more attention to negative than to positive information. It is argued that the bias is a consequence of risk-aversion that developed through evolution and is therefore a part of […] Read more

Party Strategy and Public Mood in Japan Lewis Luartz (University of California, Riverside) What impacts do Japanese party strategies have on their electoral outcomes? Although the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has a near continuous hold of government in Japanese politics, many have simplified competition to a state of competition among other parties for the opposition […] Read more

Ambivalence Across the Globe:  Investigating the Effects of Political Ambivalence on Vote Switching in Multi-Party Systems Klara Dentler (University of Mannheim) Since the past two decades, vote switching has been on the rise. An under-researched dimension of this phenomenon is the impact of ambivalent political attitudes. Whilst the effects of ambivalence on vote switching have been investigated in the […] Read more

Many disciplines in the social sciences face a ‘credibility crisis’. In response to such crises, the Open Science movement is promoting research practices that are more transparent. In political science, there is a clear trend towards more transparent and replicable research. More and more journals are requiring the pre-registration of experimental work and a few […] Read more

Démocratie et élections libres à travers les yeux des immigrants Anna Zagrebina (Université de Montréal) Les visions de la démocratie changent les orientations des gens vers la démocratie, affectent la satisfaction à l’égard de la démocratie et ont un effet significatif sur le comportement politique et sont donc devenues un sujet de recherche. Sur la […] Read more