Abstract: Canonical theories of opinion formation attribute an important role to affect. But how and for whom affect matters is theoretically underdeveloped. We establish the circumplex model in political science as a theory of core affect. In [...]
Abstract: To paint a fuller picture of economic voters, we combine personal income records with a representative election survey. We examine three central topics in the economic voting literature: pocketbook versus sociotropic voting, the effe [...]
Abstract: Political observers, campaign experts, and academics alike argue bitterly over whether it is more important for a party to capture ideologically moderate swing voters or to encourage turnout among hardcore partisans. The behavioral l [...]
Abstract: We develop and validate a novel experimental design that builds a bridge between experimental research on the theory of spatial voting and the literature on measuring policy positions from text. Our design utilizes established text-s [...]
Abstract: Constitutions traffic in magic and deceit, argues Günter Frankenberg, promising freedom and democracy even as they underwrite the exercise of coercive power on a massive scale. Scholars should approach constitutions with a healthy sk [...]
Abstract: Democratic citizens confront a range of problems framed as “security” issues, in policy areas such as counterterrorism and migration control, which place substantial political pressure on democratic norms. We develop a normative theo [...]
Abstract: Are legislators responsive to the priorities of the public? Research demonstrates a strong correspondence between the issues about which the public cares and the issues addressed by politicians, but conclusive evidence about who lead [...]
Abstract: Does more media censorship imply more regime stability? We argue that censorship may cause mass disapproval for censoring regimes. In particular, we expect that censorship backfires when citizens can falsify media content through alt [...]
Abstract: Can gender-based “enclaves” facilitate women’s access to justice? I examine all-female police stations in India and test whether group-specific institutions assist victims of gender-based violence and female officers in law enforceme [...]
Abstract: Researchers need to select high-quality research designs and communicate those designs clearly to readers. Both tasks are difficult. We provide a framework for formally “declaring” the analytically relevant features of a research des [...]
Abstract: Eliciting honest answers to sensitive questions is frustrated if subjects withhold the truth for fear that others will judge or punish them. The resulting bias is commonly referred to as social desirability bias, a subset of what we [...]
Abstract: Land law reform through registration and titling is often viewed as a technocratic, good-governance step toward building market economies and depoliticising land transactions. In actual practice, however, land registration and titlin [...]
Abstract: As government welfare programming contracts and NGOs increasingly assume core aid functions, they must address a long-standing challenge—that people in need often belong to stigmatized groups. To study other-regarding behavior, we fi [...]
Abstract: Fighting corruption is a vital aspect of good governance. When assessing government performance voters should thus withdraw electoral support from government parties that turn a blind eye to or even engage in corrupt practices. Where [...]
Abstract: Multidimensional concepts are non-compensatory when higher values on one component cannot offset lower values on another. Thinking of the components of a multidimensional phenomenon as non-compensatory rather than substitutable can h [...]
Abstract: Roll-call votes provide scholars with the opportunity to measure many quantities of interest. However, the usefulness of the roll-call sample depends on the population it is intended to represent. After laying out why understanding t [...]
Abstract: Science is central to the regulation of risk. But who provides the science on which risk regulations are based? Through an in‐depth empirical analysis of domestic health and safety standards, this article shows how private actors use [...]
Abstract: Comparative research on authoritarianism has largely neglected religion. Yet, in order to understand the logic of authoritarian control over the civil society, it is necessary to study how the authoritarian regimes deal with religiou [...]
Abstract: Under what conditions do nation-wide mass protests in authoritarian regimes produce new local activist organizations? Based on sixty-five interviews and over 1,000 media reports, internal documents, and social media posts, I compare [...]
Abstract: Racial inequality in voter turnout is well-documented, but we know less about racial inequality in campaign contributions. Using new data on the racial identities of over 27 million donors, we find an unrepresentative contributor cla [...]
Abstract: Immigration is a highly polarized issue in the United States, and negative attitudes toward immigrants are common. Yet, almost all Americans are descended from people who originated outside the country, a narrative often evoked by th [...]
Abstract: There are at least two politically salient senses of “representation”—acting-for-others and portraying-something-as-something. The difference is not just semantic but also logical: relations of representative agency are dyadic (x rep [...]
Abstract: How did personal wealth and slaveownership affect the likelihood Southerners fought for the Confederate Army in the American Civil War? On the one hand, wealthy Southerners had incentives to free-ride on poorer Southerners and avoid [...]
Abstract: Should political theorists engage in ethnography? In this letter, we assess a recent wave of interest in ethnography among political theorists and explain why it is a good thing. We focus, in particular, on how ethnographic research [...]