Electoral StudiesPub Date : 2025-06-01Epub Date: 2025-03-27DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102928
Claudia Landwehr , Christopher Ojeda , Paul Weingärtner
{"title":"A quiet and invisible challenge: Depressive symptoms and the evaluation of democratic institutions","authors":"Claudia Landwehr , Christopher Ojeda , Paul Weingärtner","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102928","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102928","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Depressive symptoms in citizens are a strong predictor of political non-participation and have considerable negative effects on motivation and political interest. Apparently, the way in which depressed citizens relate to democratic institutions significantly differs from that of other citizens. In this letter, we therefore explore the relationship between depressive symptoms and the assessment of democracy. We test whether depressive symptoms, and the negativity bias they engender, lead to more negative evaluations of democratic institutions, practices and performance. Drawing on data from the European Social Survey, we find depression has negative effects on the assessment of democracy across countries and evaluative dimensions, and that on average, people with depressive symptoms have more negative views about democracy in their own country. An analysis of longitudinal data from Germany provides further evidence by demonstrating that intrapersonal changes in depression over time lead to changes in democratic evaluations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"95 ","pages":"Article 102928"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143714981","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Electoral StudiesPub Date : 2025-06-01Epub Date: 2025-04-07DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102930
Elizabeth Simon , Daniel Devine , Jamie Furlong
{"title":"What drives the link between university study and attitudinal change?","authors":"Elizabeth Simon , Daniel Devine , Jamie Furlong","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102930","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102930","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>What drives the link between university study and attitudinal change? While research shows that obtaining a degree tends to make students more socially liberal, little is known about what drives this effect. We address this ‘how’ question by testing the socialisation-based mechanisms through which university study may shift attitudes; combining individual-level panel data from the British Election Study Internet Panel with university- and constituency-level data about where respondents studied to estimate sub-group effects. Our results suggest that students tend to shift their attitudes subtly in a leftward and liberal direction whilst at university, but that this average effect is larger for: those who graduate younger, who study STEM and other non-HSS subjects (social attitudes only), who move away from home to study, who attend single campus institutions, and who live in ‘university towns’ and ‘cosmopolitan London’ while studying (all economic attitudes only). Overall, we find evidence to suggest that the socialisation experiences individuals are exposed to while studying have important shaping effects on their attitudes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"95 ","pages":"Article 102930"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143785444","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Electoral StudiesPub Date : 2025-06-01Epub Date: 2025-03-05DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102908
Adrian Rothers
{"title":"The poles in polarization: Social categorization and affective polarization in multiparty systems","authors":"Adrian Rothers","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102908","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102908","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A challenge in adapting the concept of affective polarization to multiparty systems has been to determine who is polarized against whom. I propose a strategy to uncover the different ways in which people construe the political field – that is, how they categorize the party landscape in terms of “us” and “them” from commonly-used survey data. Using 2023 panel data from Germany, a multiparty democracy, I show that people are polarized in opposing camps along three different divides: between Left and Right, between Mainstream and Rightwing Populists, and between Center and Extreme. To understand what people are polarized over, I explore the issue differences that underpin each of the divides. Lastly, I examine the associations between affective polarization and democratic attitudes across camps and find considerable variation in those associations. This variation suggests that perhaps not all affective polarization should be seen as equally problematic.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"95 ","pages":"Article 102908"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143550562","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Electoral StudiesPub Date : 2025-06-01Epub Date: 2025-03-20DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102926
Alessandro Nai, Patrick F.A. van Erkel, Linda Bos
{"title":"Turning up and down the partisan heat. Voters’ psychological profile and changes in negative radical partisanship over the course of an election","authors":"Alessandro Nai, Patrick F.A. van Erkel, Linda Bos","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102926","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102926","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Who is more likely to get “heated up” against their political rivals during the course of the campaign, as election day draws near? And for whom is such aggressive stance more likely to “cool down” in the aftermath of the election? Leveraging novel evidence from a four-wave longitudinal survey fielded in the weeks leading to – and the aftermath of – the Dutch national elections of November 2023 (<em>N</em> = 5500 in wave 1, <em>N</em> = 1770 in wave 4), we test for the predictors of changes in negative radical partisanship (NRP) in voters. We measure NRP via four independent indicators – support for political violence, partisan Schadenfreude, moral disengagement, and social distance – and investigate the extent to which the psychological profile of respondents affects whether they “heat up” and “cool down” their radical stance during the course of the election. Results suggest that expressive partisanship and need for chaos highly relate to upsurges of negative radical partisanship in the build-up to elections, while at the same time hampering any post-election cooling down. The dark personality profile of respondents and populist attitudes seem to relate only marginally to (de)radicalization. Data and codes are openly available for replication.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"95 ","pages":"Article 102926"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143681099","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Electoral StudiesPub Date : 2025-06-01Epub Date: 2025-05-15DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102938
Jóhanna Kristín Birnir , Noory Okthariza , Khoirunnisa Nur Agustyati , Heroik M. Pratama
{"title":"The Patriarchy in the Parties: Voters, parties and women’s electoral fortunes in the 2024 legislative election in Indonesia","authors":"Jóhanna Kristín Birnir , Noory Okthariza , Khoirunnisa Nur Agustyati , Heroik M. Pratama","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102938","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102938","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Do voter and party gender biases differently affect the likelihood that female and male candidates are nominated to and elected from equivalent list positions in national legislative elections? This paper examines the interaction between list position, gender quotas, and voter and party biases in shaping women’s electoral success in Indonesia’s 2024 legislative election. Using new data on nearly 10K candidates, while voter penalties against female candidates are important, our analysis finds that parties can effectively counteract these biases through strong list placement. However, we also find that parties nominate far fewer women than men and appear to apply different selection criteria when placing female candidates in lower list positions compared to their male counterparts. Additionally, our results underscore the critical role of party system fragmentation and candidate quotas in shaping women’s representation. We also highlight how seemingly minor adjustments to quota calculations can impact electoral competition.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"95 ","pages":"Article 102938"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144068372","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Electoral StudiesPub Date : 2025-06-01Epub Date: 2025-03-20DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102920
Mert Can Bayar
{"title":"Partisan and non-partisan conspiracy theories’ diverging effects on political participation","authors":"Mert Can Bayar","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102920","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102920","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>What role do conspiracy theories play in mobilizing political action? Both historical and contemporary accounts have written on the role of conspiracy theories (CTs) in mobilizing various movements, including during the process of nation-building, regime consolidation, and in challenges to liberal democracy in more recent years. In contrast, recent empirical research suggests that beliefs in CTs might reduce participation in politics. However, both research genres have only analyzed a limited number of CTs. This article explores how belief in different CTs affects people’s likelihood to participate in politics, particularly in relation to partisan narratives. Using two surveys conducted in the United States (n=1200) and Turkey (n=1500) -two cases that approximate a most different system design-, it finds that beliefs in partisan CTs encourage citizens to participate in politics while the effect of beliefs in non-partisan CTs on political participation varies depending on the individual’s political affiliation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"95 ","pages":"Article 102920"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143681098","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Electoral StudiesPub Date : 2025-06-01Epub Date: 2025-03-27DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102923
Moulay Lablih , Pascal Sciarini
{"title":"Who are the internet voters? An age, period and cohort analysis of e-voting use","authors":"Moulay Lablih , Pascal Sciarini","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102923","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102923","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Existing research highlights age-related differences in internet voting but fails to disentangle the underlying effects. We conduct an age, period and cohort (APC) analysis of e-voting use on a unique set of registered, panel data covering 46 ballots in Switzerland between 2004 and 2019. Our findings reveal a joint influence of cohort and age effects on the likelihood of voting online. Voters born between the mid-1960s and mid-1980s display the highest e-voting rates, surpassing both younger and older cohorts. However, within these intermediate cohorts, e-voting usage declines notably with age. In contrast, age exerts little to no influence on e-voting among the youngest cohort (born in the 1990s) and the oldest cohorts (1930s and 1940s), with usage nearing zero for the latter group. These results refine our understanding of how age influences e-voting adoption and help to evaluate its potential to increase voter turnout.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"95 ","pages":"Article 102923"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143706528","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Electoral StudiesPub Date : 2025-06-01Epub Date: 2025-03-26DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102924
Melek Hilal Eroglu
{"title":"Relative out-party hostility and its consequences in multiparty democracies","authors":"Melek Hilal Eroglu","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102924","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102924","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>How extensive and intense is out-party hostility in contemporary multiparty democracies, and what are its consequences for democratic attitudes, political engagement, and voting behavior? While previous studies have highlighted increasing trends in such hostility, existing measures of the concept fall short in three key respects: they fail to account for the breadth and intensity of hostility in multiparty systems, they do not offer a singular measure for overall hostility, and they do not account for the relative prevalence of negative versus positive party affect. This paper introduces a new measure, ‘Relative Hostility’ to overcome these limitations. Using data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) across 48 multiparty democracies, this study compares the effects of ‘Relative Hostility’ with those of existing measures of out-party hostility and Affective Polarization on democratic attitudes, support for extremism, and political participation. The findings demonstrate that ‘Relative Hostility’ more accurately explains the adverse effects on democracies, such as increased dissatisfaction with democracy and support for extremist parties. These findings underscore the urgent need for developing strategies that mitigate out-party hostility to bolster democratic resilience.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"95 ","pages":"Article 102924"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143706527","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Electoral StudiesPub Date : 2025-06-01Epub Date: 2025-03-06DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102911
Roman Hlatky , Oľga Gyárfášová
{"title":"The strategic dilemma of social democracy: Lessons from Slovakia","authors":"Roman Hlatky , Oľga Gyárfášová","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102911","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102911","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The declining fortunes of European social democracy have been the subject of much attention. A contested explanation for how to remedy the decline concerns whether conservative shifts on sociocultural and transnational issues are helpful or harmful at the ballot box. In contrast, we focus on an underexplored adaptation strategy: the split of social democracy along the sociocultural cleavage. We analyze the Slovak case where a successful, dominant social democratic party, Smer-SD, divided. One part of the divide took radical, conservative stances on sociocultural and geopolitical issues, while the other part adopted moderate positions. Analyzing over 30 public opinion polls, we show that the split and the parties’ subsequent ideological differentiation led to electoral success. Radicalization attracted conservative former radical-right voters; moderation ensured the support of the more liberal middle class. Situating Slovakia in the wider European context, we: (1) suggest that the salience of the sociocultural cleavage has strengthened the appeal of a nationalist left programmatic direction in Central and Eastern Europe; (2) explore why moderate social democracy succeeded in Slovakia but failed elsewhere; and (3) confirm previous findings on the importance of strong leadership and a large membership base for splinter party success, and on voter responsiveness to parties' ideological and programmatic shifts. More generally, the Slovak case illustrates that party splits are both a consequence of and a potentially effective response to the strategic dilemma of social democracy.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"95 ","pages":"Article 102911"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143562848","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Electoral StudiesPub Date : 2025-06-01Epub Date: 2025-05-14DOI: 10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102941
Alexander Verdoes
{"title":"Do second-order elections produce second-order governments? How national and regional factors influence the composition of regional governments","authors":"Alexander Verdoes","doi":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102941","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102941","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Regional elections are broadly considered second-order elections, where voters tend to punish parties in national government and favor opposition, small, and new parties instead. Regional government formations are also influenced by national factors, as coalitions are more likely to form if a regional government is congruent with the national government. Nevertheless, how national and regional factors interact, and impact regional government compositions has received little attention. This article argues that national incumbency is both an asset and a liability for a party seeking to enter regional government. However, the extent to which a party's national government status matters for entering regional government is conditional upon the political system, the timing of a regional election relative to the national election, and the level of regional authority.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48188,"journal":{"name":"Electoral Studies","volume":"95 ","pages":"Article 102941"},"PeriodicalIF":2.9,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143943768","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}