Political Behavior

The Economic Consequences of Protest Repression: The Case of Business Activism in Hong Kong - Political Behavior Studies of contentious politics have extensively examined the impacts of protest repression on mobilization, but the implications of repression on economic phenomena have received little attention. Th...

New research on Hong Kong’s 2019 Anti-ELAB movement shows that constituencies exposed to tear gas saw more businesses publicly align with the protest movement. When repression meets pro-movement consumers, activism can become profitable.
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What Explains Country-Level Differences in Political Belief System Coherence? - Political Behavior Although public opinion research has made tremendous progress in identifying the conditions under which citizens adopt coherent political beliefs, comparatively little attention has been paid to the r...

Across 38 European countries, network analyses show that programmatic party–citizen linkages are linked to more coherent mass belief systems, especially where symbolic ideological identities anchor the attitude network.
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Pushing and Pulling: The Static and Dynamic Effects of Political Distrust on Support for Representative Democracy and its Rivals - Political Behavior Distrust is widely argued to stimulate support for political and institutional change. Yet, there is little agreement among scholars whether distrust pulls people towards rivaling decision-making mode...

Does political distrust undermine representative democracy? New evidence from four European countries shows it mainly increases support for direct democracy, especially among politically efficacious and populist voters. #ComparativePolitics
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The Democratic Dilemma among Elites: Do Legislators Make More Reasoned Decisions than the Public? - Political Behavior Are legislators knowledgeable enough to make good public policy decisions? We examine three aspects of legislators’ decision-making: how much they know about the consequences of policy proposals, spec...

Do legislators make more reasoned decisions than the public? New evidence shows that while lawmakers do not have stronger policy knowledge, legislative institutions help ensure their votes reflect accurate beliefs about policy consequences.
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The Insurance Value of Abortion and Support for Reproductive Rights - Political Behavior Existing scholarship holds that Americans’ views on abortion policy are determined by their moral and religious beliefs. In this article, we argue that these beliefs are only part of the story. We pro...

Why does support for abortion rights change over the life course? New evidence shows that becoming a parent is associated with declining support for abortion, particularly among conservatives and practicing Christians.
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Labor vs. Big Business: Interest Groups, Cue-Taking, and Voting Behavior - Political Behavior How do individuals interpret interest group cues to make informed voting decisions that are aligned with their partisan identities and ideologies? In the 2020 election cycle, Californians voted on a b...

When do voters follow labor or side with big business? Evidence from California’s gig worker ballot fight shows that when attitudes are weakly formed, interest group cues matter greatly and labor unions still guide Democratic voters.
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Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday season! See you in the New Year!

When Push Comes to Shove: How Americans Excuse and Condemn Political Violence - Political Behavior What factors do Americans find most important when evaluating acts of political violence? Normatively, details regarding the violent act (e.g., the target and violence severity) should determine the p...

When do Americans excuse or condemn political violence? New evidence shows that while who commits the violence matters, what they do matters far more, target and severity drive punishment more than partisan identity, an encouraging finding.
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Language Cues and Perceptions of Nationalism - Political Behavior How do people respond to symbols related to nationalism, and does having political context matter? We argue that nationalist symbols influence perceptions when in a political context. Leveraging that ...

How powerful are nationalist symbols? Work by O’Brochta & Cunha Silva shows that subtle language cues matter in political context. In Serbia, politicians use Cyrillic to signal nationalism, and these cues make politicians seem more nationalist.
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Is Satisfaction with Democracy Higher After Transitional Justice Trials? - Political Behavior Trials are considered the most polarizing measure of transitional justice, as they have harsh consequences on the prosecuted and may criminalize a portion of the previous authoritarian elite that migh...

Trials are often seen as a polarizing form of transitional justice, but new evidence suggests they can strengthen democracy. Padialla finds that across Latin America, prosecuting authoritarian crimes increases satisfaction with democracy.
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Fuel on the Fire: Has the Politics of COVID-19 Accelerated Secularization in America? - Political Behavior Politics increasingly shapes Americans’ social orientations, including their religious affiliations and levels of religiosity. Less is known about whether politics affects secularism—an affirmative em...

COVID-19 politics fueled a rise in secularism. New evidence shows the public debate over vaccines and pandemic responses increased Americans’ embrace of secular worldviews, with the strongest shifts among Democrats tied to pro-science attitudes.
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Crisis and Correction: Do Government Rectification Efforts Restore Citizen Trust After Governance Failure? - Political Behavior In a substantial literature on political trust in normal times, we know little about the impact on trust of crises or subsequent government efforts at correction. We investigate these impacts by analy...

What happens to political trust after a crisis? New evidence from China shows governance failures sharply erode trust, and government corrections don’t work for everyone. “Insiders” with past exposure remain skeptical, while others recover.
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It’s the Economy: The Effect of Economic Policy Appeals on Latino Independents - Political Behavior Studies of minority voters have long considered the role of both ethnic identities and economic interests. However, research on Latino voters emphasizes ethnic identity and the related issue of immigr...

What moves Latino independents? New evidence shows economic policy appeals drive the most positive reactions. Economic messages resonate across party lines, while immigration cues polarize more than they persuade.
#PoliSciResearch
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Am I Eligible to Register? Registration Rules, Eligibility Uncertainty, and Youth Voter Turnout - Political Behavior Is a lack of information about eligibility rules partly responsible for the particularly low youth voter turnout in U.S. elections? In a context where new voters usually have to register several weeks...

Why do so many young Americans sit out elections? New evidence shows eligibility uncertainty creates sharp drops in youth turnout. Small rule changes (or clear info) can close the gap.
#YouthVoters #ElectionResearch
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APSA’s Elections, Public Opinion & Voting Behavior Section is seeking nominations & applications for the next Editor of Political Behavior (term begins January 2027). Scholars & editorial teams encouraged to apply! Deadline: March 1, 2026.
More info ⬇️
link.springer.com/journal/1110...

From Losers’ Consent to Winners’ Restraint: Citizens Reactions to Accumulating Democratic Violations - Political Behavior While ‘losers’ consent’ has long been recognized as crucial for democratic stability, recent concerns over elite manipulation of democratic processes highlight the need to shift focus to the responsib...

How do we know when loyal partisans stop excusing democratic violations? New research on “winners’ restraint” shows that even political winners have limits, and accumulating procedural abuses can trigger real withdrawal of legitimacy.
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How to Distinguish Motivated Reasoning from Bayesian Updating - Political Behavior Can we use the way that people respond to information as evidence that partisan bias or directional motives influence political beliefs? It depends. Using one natural formalization of motivated reason...

How do we tell motivated reasoning from Bayesian updating? Little shows that standard designs can’t distinguish them—unless people sometimes reject unwelcome information, which changes the picture.
#BehavioralScience #PoliSciResearch
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The Nature of Online Talk: Incivility of Opposing Views and Affective Polarization - Political Behavior Affective polarization is on the rise. Increasing polarization is often attributed to the nature of political discussion on social media platforms, but little is known about the affective consequences...

How does online tone shape polarization? Goel & Merkley find that people punish incivility from their own side—but not from opponents. Still, uncivil talk can spill over, fueling broader out-party hostility. Gender doesn’t change these effects.
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The Role of Education in Political Information Processing and Correct Voting: Inequality at the Voting Booth? - Political Behavior It has been well established that the effectiveness and quality of political representation is unequally distributed in Western democracies. Scholars have frequently warned about the rise of ‘diploma ...

Education shapes how accurately citizens connect their interests to candidates. Goubin et al. find that more educated voters process political information more effectively and are more likely to cast a “correct” vote.
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Americans’ Opposition to Muslim Immigration: Untangling Religion from Country of Origin - Political Behavior Does an immigrant’s country of origin shape Americans’ immigration preferences? If so, are some attributes of origin countries likely to provoke particularly strong opposition over others? We answer t...

Americans’ immigration attitudes reflect both country of origin and religion. Christley & Zhirkov find that immigrants from Muslim-majority countries face lower support for admission—across parties, though less so among Democrats.
#Immigration
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Backlash or Inclusion? The Political Effects of Co-Ethnic Immigration - Political Behavior Immigration often causes backlash, to the benefit of anti-immigrant parties. Most studies that identify the effect of immigration on native attitudes and behaviors leverage variation in inflows of new...

Immigration doesn’t always spark backlash.
Attewell, Jozwiak & Kuhn find that when migrants share ethnicity with natives, exposure can boost empathy and support pro-immigrant parties. In Germany, co-ethnic inflows aided the CDU.
#Immigration
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Pushing and Pulling: The Static and Dynamic Effects of Political Distrust on Support for Representative Democracy and its Rivals - Political Behavior Distrust is widely argued to stimulate support for political and institutional change. Yet, there is little agreement among scholars whether distrust pulls people towards rivaling decision-making mode...

Political distrust pushes citizens away from representative democracy, but not uniformly toward its rivals. Van der Meer & Janssen find that distrust (especially among populists) fuels support for direct democracy.
#Democracy
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Couples Therapy for a Divided America: Assessing the Effects of Reciprocal Group Reflection on Partisan Polarization - Political Behavior Overcoming America’s deep partisan polarization poses a unique challenge: Americans must be able to sharply disagree on who should govern while agreeing on more fundamental democratic principles. We s...

Couples therapy for a divided America?
A Braver Angels–inspired workshop reduced partisan polarization among students through empathy and reflection, though some effects faded with time. Emotional + informational dialogue works.
#Depolarization
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Leaving a legacy?
Darr & Harman find that Americans who move away from local newspapers lose faith in elections, but not in democracy itself. Declining local news may erode electoral trust.
#PoliticalBehavior #MediaEffects
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Do Fans Make Poor Referees? Exploring Citizens’ Reactions to Partisan Gamesmanship - Political Behavior Political (as opposed to professional) election oversight is one area in which the U.S. scores extremely low in measures of election integrity. Meanwhile, rancorous political battles to determine acceptable election procedures and judge when tactics cross the line have become common events. Our work contributes to recent scholarship investigating whether voters prioritize democratic principles or strategically favor electoral procedures that provide partisan advantage. In two survey experiments, we confirm that Americans’ attitudes about antidemocratic election tactics reveal more about which team they are cheering for than they do about whether the tactics are fraudulent. The tendency to engage in partisan motivated reasoning occurs among all partisans, but there are subtle differences as to when citizens will engage in it. Partisan motivated reasoning is more common when actions cause harm and by the partisans that are harmed. Finally, Independents are more impartial, but less likely to call out improper tactics in the aggregate because they often fail to condemn actions by either party.

Can seeing the “other side” differently heal division?
Myers & Hvidsten find that meeting counter-stereotypical partisans reduces bias and improves feelings toward the out-party.
#PoliticalBehavior #AffectivePolarization
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Do Fans Make Poor Referees? Exploring Citizens’ Reactions to Partisan Gamesmanship - Political Behavior Political (as opposed to professional) election oversight is one area in which the U.S. scores extremely low in measures of election integrity. Meanwhile, rancorous political battles to determine acceptable election procedures and judge when tactics cross the line have become common events. Our work contributes to recent scholarship investigating whether voters prioritize democratic principles or strategically favor electoral procedures that provide partisan advantage. In two survey experiments, we confirm that Americans’ attitudes about antidemocratic election tactics reveal more about which team they are cheering for than they do about whether the tactics are fraudulent. The tendency to engage in partisan motivated reasoning occurs among all partisans, but there are subtle differences as to when citizens will engage in it. Partisan motivated reasoning is more common when actions cause harm and by the partisans that are harmed. Finally, Independents are more impartial, but less likely to call out improper tactics in the aggregate because they often fail to condemn actions by either party.

Do fans make poor referees? ⚖️
Claassen, Ensley & Ryan find that when judging election tactics, partisans care more about who benefits than what’s fair. Independents? More neutral—but quieter critics.
#PoliticalBehavior #ElectionIntegrity
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link.springer.com/article/10.1...

How Strong Policy Attitudes Activate Support for Aggressive Political Action - Political Behavior There is a long history of political violence in the United States. Scholars have documented numerous dispositions that predict support for violence as a political tactic, finding that a general tendency toward aggression is consistently among the strongest predictors. Yet, we know much less about how political attitudes might activate aggressive personalities and direct them toward specific targets. In this paper, we examine how policy attitudes interact with dispositional aggression to motivate support for political violence. Across two studies, using novel measures and within-subjects designs, we show that intense policy opposition strongly predicts support for aggressive political tactics against politicians responsible for the legislation – primarily among those who are dispositionally prone to aggression. Surprisingly, the strength of partisan identity plays little role in explaining support for political aggression. Our findings suggest that policy attitudes are a crucial factor for understanding when aggressive individuals might turn to political violence.

When do strong attitudes turn dangerous?
Clifford & Lothamer show that intense policy opposition, not partisanship, channels aggressive personalities toward supporting political violence. #AmericanPolitics
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The Role of Networks in Mobilization for Ethnic Minority Interest Parties - Political Behavior Recently, parties that are run by and for ethnic minority citizens with a migration background have become more prominent. They can be considered a manifestation of ethnic political segregation. A key example of such a party is DENK in the Netherlands. So far, the explanatory literature has focused on how programmatic considerations drives voting for these parties. Other factors, such as the role of social networks in mobilization, have received limited testing and limited exploration in more detail. Furthermore, the literature on social networks is mainly based on majority populations. To inform our understanding of the role of social networks in voting (in general but also particularly among ethnic minority communities and for ethnic minority interest parties) this paper analyzes the voting behavior for DENK focusing on the role of personal, online and religious networks. The paper uses both qualitative interviews (with bicultural youth in the third largest city of the Netherlands in 2022) and quantitative surveys (the 2021 Dutch Ethnic Minority Electoral Study). Our analysis points to the importance of religious and personal networks for voting for DENK, whereas online networks appear to be less relevant.

Do ethnic minority interest parties grow through programs, or people? Schaaf, Otjes & Spierings show that DENK’s support in the Netherlands stems mainly from personal & religious networks, while online ties matter less. #ComparativePolitics
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Authoritarian Nostalgia, Group Sentiment, and Voter Behavior: Evidence from East Asia - Political Behavior Legacies of an authoritarian past have enduring effects on voters’ attitudes and behaviors. I argue that authoritarian nostalgia is an important source of group sentiment and voter behavior in post-authoritarian democracies. Voters with nostalgic sentiment construct strong group sentiment based on historical perception and express attachment towards authoritarian successors. I test this argument with a new measure of authoritarian nostalgia. With original data collected from South Korea and Taiwan, I provide evidence that nostalgic voters are likely to exhibit strong group sentiment observable through partisan attachment. Abstracting from the specific cases, I use a randomly assigned candidate comparison analysis to demonstrate that voters high in authoritarian nostalgia are more attracted to hypothetical candidates invoking nostalgia than those with high programmatic or ideological proximity. Overall, the results show how authoritarian nostalgia remains important as a source of group sentiment in maturing democracies.

Is nostalgia for authoritarian rule just history, or political behavior? Kim-Leffingwell shows that in South Korea & Taiwan, authoritarian nostalgia fosters group sentiment & attachment to successors, shaping voter behavior. #ComparativePolitics
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Partisanship and Support for Devolving Concrete Policy Decisions to the States - Political Behavior Do people think that some policies should be handled by the states, rather than the national government? In an era characterized by stark party polarization there is reason to suspect that attitudes regarding federalism are shaped by partisan considerations. Specifically, reported support for devolution may be driven by exposure to elite partisan cues and partisan reasoning tied to which political party devolution would empower. Using data from the 2022 Cooperative Election Study, we find that partisans tend to differ—often substantially—in their support for state-level decision-making regarding concrete policy proposals. However, these differences are largely driven by those who are most likely to be exposed to elite cues. We also find that, among both Democrats and Republicans, support for policy devolution is contingent on which party controls the state legislature in an individual’s state. The findings suggest that partisanship plays a central role in shaping what the public says when asked about which level of government should determine whether to implement specific policy proposals.

Is support for “states’ rights” really about federalism, or partisanship? Doherty, Touchton & Lyons show views on devolving policy to states hinge on elite cues & which party controls the legislature. #AmericanPolitics
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