What we are reading: Corruption performance voting Do voters punish government parties for high levels of corruption? Performance voting is a generalisation of economic voting: the idea that voters governments punish/reward for good/bad, well, performance. Low levels of systemic corruption are both an aspect and a precondition for a polity’s performance, so studying how voters’…
The reading class exercise goes on. Inevitably, the class on the consequences of the Radical Right’s rise kicks off with some recent work on the underlying causes. What is the link between social class and radical right voting in Western Europe? The idea that the radical right forms a new party family, whose rise is…
Working with repeated comparative survey data – almost a howto There is now a bonanza of studies that rely on surveys which are replicated across countries and time, often with fairly short intervals, with the ESS arguably one of the most prominent examples (but also see the “barometer” studies in various regions). Multi-level analysis is…
Traditionally, Germany’s long, gloomy, depressing and generally horrible winter semester ends mid-February. It is followed by a break that slips past us in the blink of an eye and then a long, sweaty, generally drawn-out but gloriously sunny summer term that ends mid-July. And this is where we are now (the beginning, not the end).…
What are the possible/likely coalition options for 🇩🇪’s next government? Take a tour with @jonworth to see what’s in stock
Neat summary of where we stand by Isabelle Hertner
How important are local weather extremes for citizens’ attitudes towards climate change? Humans are generally stupid and tend to ignore things that seem abstract and will happen in the future (even if the future is not very distant). There is a small-ish literature on how Americans’ climate opinion responds to more extreme/hotter weather. And then…
How important are social incentives for turnout? Since the earliest election studies, we have assumed that social networks are important for turnout, and that voting more generally is a form of social behaviour (and also a habit). While there are heaps of data to support these ideas, this study from Denmark is quite something. Thanks…
CNN had a chat with Wolfgang Merkel, Gero Neugebauer, and yours truly about the highs and lows of Germany’s pandemic response. Of course, the media are more interested in agency than in structure, but I managed to sneak in a concept or two. And so this may (or may not) be the first piece on…
The Greens will probably be an important part of the next German government and might even get the chancellorship. I had a virtual chat about the party with Ruairi Casey, who used some of my words. [contentcards url="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/4/19/could-a-green-party-chancellor-lead-germany" target="_blank"]