People are interested in political distrust because we normally assume that it is caused by poor government performance and that it has negative consequences, especially for political participation. In this paper, we challenge these two assumptions.
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Political extremism is often attributed to voter anger and broader structural socioeconomic conditions. From this perspective, efforts to counter extremist movements may appear futile, since such groups are seen as deeply embedded in the contexts from which they arise. But is this necessarily the case? To address this question, we examine the Papal condemnation of an influential far-right movement in interwar France.
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One of the strongest findings in political behavior research is that people often take cues from their party when forming opinions. If their party supports a proposal, they are more likely to support it too. If the opposing party supports it, they often move the other way. In a polarized age, that pattern matters. It suggests that citizens may sometimes respond less to what a policy does than to who backs it.
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In the early 1990s, the growth of independent media played a vital role in Africa’s democratic transitions. New outlets broke state monopolies, promoting accountability and pluralism. But media freedom has…
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Montevideo’s Lottery for Good TaxpayersIn 2004, Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, launched a pioneering program to reward punctual taxpayers by entering them into a lottery. The winners got a “tax…
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Climate change is an issue of economic transformation. As societies decarbonize, the focus of economic activity will shift from greenhouse gas-intensive industries to clean alternatives. As they are forced to…
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Imagine you’re a politician enjoying a decent run in the opinion polls. You post on Facebook about the issues you care about most—your party’s core themes, the things you think…
1 CommentWhat happens when politicians face stricter budget constraints? Do they become more efficient managers of public resources, or do they find new ways to conceal misbehavior? Following the Great Recession,…
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Voters in democracies regularly have the chance to hold political parties accountable for their behavior in office. That includes taking stock of public policies that benefit some people at the…
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Online Framings of Offline Violence in Syria’s Civil War How do representations of violent conflict differ across social media platforms? Our recently published article tackles this question through a close…
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