Emotional States
Affective polarization and democratic erosion: Evidence from a context of weak partisanship
Loreto Cox, Pedro Cubillos & Carmen Le Foulon
Political Science Research and Methods, forthcoming
Abstract:
Can the "us versus them" dynamic in politics undermine support for democracy even in the absence of strong party identification? While much is known about affective polarization in the USA, its impact on democratic commitment in other contexts remains understudied. We examine Chile's 2022 plebiscite, where voters decided whether to approve or reject a new constitution amid low levels of party trust and identification. Through an experiment using an unobtrusive primer, we successfully induced short-term affective polarization, heightening animosity across multiple dimensions. Our findings show that individuals primed to this polarization significantly reduced their support for democracy, mirroring patterns observed in the USA. These results emphasize the importance of studying affective polarization, especially in regions with fragile democratic histories.
Economic Crisis and Disillusionment from Socialism: Evidence From a Quasi-Natural Experiment
Ran Abramitzky et al.
NBER Working Paper, July 2025
Abstract:
While many socialist countries suffered from harsh economic crises, studying their impacts on economic and political attitudes is challenging because of the scarcity of reliable data in nondemocratic contexts. We study a democratic socialist setting where we have ample information on such attitudes: the Israeli kibbutzim. Exploiting an economic crisis that hit some kibbutzim more than others, we find that the crisis led to reduced support for leftist political parties. This effect persisted for over 20 years after the crisis had ended. We document that the electoral movement was rooted in a rightward shift in economic attitudes, suggesting that economic crises may undermine socialist regimes by silently changing attitudes toward them. In our unique setting, we can also study recovery mechanisms from the crisis. First, we find that while a sharp debt relief arrangement restored trust in the leadership, it did not reverse the impact of the crisis on economic attitudes. Second, as part of their efforts to recover from the crisis, kibbutzim liberalized their labor markets. Analyzing the staggered shift away from equal sharing to market-based wages, we find that this labor market liberalization led kibbutz members to move further rightward in their political voting and economic attitudes.
Public participation and constitutional compliance
Jamie Bologna Pavlik & Andrew Young
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Many constitutions are ratified by referendum, and public participation in earlier stages of constitution-making is increasingly common. Participation may increase the perceived legitimacy of a constitution and citizens' knowledge about it. If this is true, one expects participation to lead to greater constitutional compliance. We explore this hypothesis using data on public participation in constitution-making and compliance. Employing matching methods, we find little evidence of a positive effect of participation on compliance generally. However, there is compelling evidence of a positive effect on provisions specific to property rights and the rule of law.
Does more democracy encourage individualism?: Evidence from women's suffrage in the US
Yeonha Jung
Public Choice, June 2025, Pages 423-444
Abstract:
This study examines the relationship between two key factors in modern society: democracy and individualism. We hypothesize that extending democratic rights promotes individualism, which is supported by historical evidence from women's suffrage in the US. Exploiting temporal variations in the passage of suffrage laws across states, border-county-pair analysis shows that the passage of women's suffrage fostered individualism, as evidenced by an increase in the prevalence of uncommon names. This relationship was more pronounced in areas with higher proportions of adult white women, who were the primary beneficiaries of suffrage extension. Falsification tests confirm that the observed increase in individualism was rooted in the expansion of democratic rights, not merely in advancement of women's rights.
Parsing Factional Affiliations among Chinese Political Elites
Siyi Zhang et al.
China Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
For researchers studying Chinese politics, the concern is not whether factions are important, but rather how to identify them. In the Chinese context, factional affiliations are often concealed, requiring researchers to devote extensive efforts to parse them. Faction detection methods have transformed over time, from the "rumours-have-it" approach of first-generation scholars, to the "backgrounds-in-common" framing of the second generation, and the "practices-of-patronage" focus of the current generation. This article offers a systematic review of these approaches and finds Junyan Jiang's patronage-focused, "within-tenure promotion" approach to be the most accessible and justifiable. Building on Jiang's work, we propose two additional criteria to this identification method, "double promotion" and "promotional grooming." Finally, we test all the verifiable approaches against the odds of China's prefectural-level leaders crossing career thresholds between 2000 and 2020. The test results show that the background-based approach has limited validity and Jiang's patronage-based approach thus requires further refinement. In contrast, our revised identification methods prove to be effective in clarifying the factional factor. This study thus proposes an improved, verified approach to identifying factions in Chinese politics and provides researchers with a reliable tool for identifying the "people factor" in the comparative study of political elites.
Keeping an eye on the villain: Assessing the impact of surveillance cameras on crime
Hong Ma et al.
Journal of Development Economics, January 2026
Abstract:
This study estimates the causal impact of the massive installation of surveillance cameras on crime, using novel data from China between 2014 and 2019. Leveraging the preexisting presence of local camera manufacturers as an instrument for camera deployment intensity, we find that cities with denser surveillance networks experienced significantly steeper declines in crime. The reduction is more pronounced for publicly visible crimes. Enhanced surveillance is linked to higher satisfaction with the government and a greater sense of security, which in turn leads to longer working hours. A back-of-envelope calculation shows that preventing a crime costs approximately $6,373, which is highly cost-effective.
Cultural Brokers: The Shaolin Temple Charity and China's United Front Work
Pin-Hsuan Wu, Wen-Hsuan Tsai & Hsin-Hsien Wang
China Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
In this article, we take the charitable activities of the Shaolin Temple as a case study for our analysis of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) management of religion under Xi Jinping. Our fieldwork and in-depth interviews reveal that the Shaolin Temple has, through its charitable work, assumed the attributes of a "cultural broker" for the CCP. And because the temple has an abundance of symbolic capital and is respected by the public, it presents the CCP with a "dictator's dilemma." On the one hand, the CCP allocated resources to the temple's orphanage so that it could assist the regime with its poverty alleviation efforts; on the other hand, there is a danger that the temple may gain sufficient ideological and discursive power to threaten the CCP's rule. So, for political security reasons, the Party bureaucracy endeavours to maintain tight control over the orphanage.
Rebels With Too Many Causes: Diverse Recruitment Appeals and the Intractability of Civil Conflicts
Michael Soules
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Do rebel groups benefit from attempting to appeal to larger segments of society by mobilizing around more diverse ideologies? Prior work has examined a variety of dimensions of ideological recruitment in civil wars but has tended to overlook the ways in which the breadth of recruitment appeals made by rebels matters. I argue that rebel organizations suffer from attempts to appeal to a diversity of ideological issues. When rebel organizations represent diverse identities and ideological interests, internal fractionalization and credible commitment problems are exacerbated. These issues complicate the bargaining process, rendering conflicts more intractable. Using novel data on the diversity of ideological-based recruitment appeals employed by armed groups, I find evidence that rebel groups that mobilize around a greater number of ideological issues fight in more protracted conflicts and are not more likely to achieve favorable outcomes.
Foreign faith and rising state: An examination of state-building dynamics in late 16th-century Japan
Minzhao Wang, Austin Michael Mitchell & Weiwen Yin
Political Science Research and Methods, forthcoming
Abstract:
How does a ruler implement state-building at the local level? This paper examines state-building in late 16th-century Japan by focusing on Toyotomi Hideyoshi's land surveys, which were crucial for establishing a centralized regime. We argue that Hideyoshi strengthened control over the locality via land surveys as a strategic response to the perceived threats emanating from Catholic missionaries. Using various empirical strategies including spatial econometrics, sensitivity analysis, and an instrumental variable approach, we find that the presence of Catholic churches significantly increased the likelihood of a locality being surveyed. These results highlight the importance of information-gathering beyond fiscal purposes for security objectives and emphasize the role of threats from foreign religious institutions in state formation processes.
The Troubles and Beyond: The impact of a museum exhibit on a post-conflict society
Laia Balcells & Elsa Voytas
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
In divided societies, can museums contribute to healing and recovery? While efforts to memorialize past violence typically aim to promote tolerance and reconciliation, remembering could exacerbate divisions in recovering societies where the past is deeply contested. We examine a transitional justice museum exhibit in Northern Ireland. We combine evidence from nearly 1,400 participants across focus groups, a field experiment at the Troubles and Beyond exhibit in the Ulster Museum, and a survey that randomly exposed respondents to exhibit materials. Our findings indicate that although individuals experience strong emotional responses to the exhibit materials, these emotions do not correspond to shifts in perceptions of past violent conflict or preferences for addressing it. These results may reflect the balanced curation of the museum exhibit, which avoids imposing a singular narrative. While this approach prevents further polarization, it also limits the potential for fostering social cohesion.