The effect of COVID-19 lockdowns on political support: Some good news for democracy?

Major crises can act as critical junctures or reinforce the political status quo, depending on how citizens view the performance of central institutions. We use an interrupted time series to study the political effect of the enforcement of a strict confinement policy in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, we take advantage of a unique representative web-based survey that was fielded in March and April 2020 in Western Europe to compare the political support of those who took the survey right before and right after the start of the lockdown in their country. We find that lockdowns have increased vote intentions for the party of the Prime Minister/President, trust in government and satisfaction with democracy. Furthermore, we find that, while rallying individuals around current leaders and institutions, they have had no effect on traditional left–right attitudes.     

The Lure of New Jobs: How Framing Impacts Perceptions of Local Subsidies for Sports Teams

Municipalities often use public funds to support private projects in pursuit of economic growth or improved quality of life. How does the framing of municipal subsidies impact public support for such funding? We examine the case of government-funded minor league baseball stadiums to address this question. Using nationally representative survey data, we find respondents are much more likely to support funding for stadiums when told that baseball will bring jobs and improve the local economy, compared to other frames. Local governments may therefore rely on positive, economic frames to gain public support, despite a lack of evidence that sports stadiums deliver net economic benefits.     

Police and the Public

In this article two features of the theme police and the public are discussed. The first part deals with the public opinion of the police and how the police deal with the public. This is a well-documented issue, but only very generally related to 'policing'. The problem of dealing with the public arises in very similar terms in all administrations, public services and community services. The qualities expected of a 'front office' (speed, competence, confidentiality, etc.) are not peculiar to the police. On the other hand, the situation of a public policing service as an urban police force is currently very specific, has an unusual, virtually undocumented historical background and is therefore worth dealing with in much greater detail. This is done in the second part of the article. To grasp this role, one needs to consider the way in which the public police service has evolved in the last half-century. Admittedly, the situation in France has certain special features, but these are simply magnified versions of things which exist elsewhere. It may be true that the institutional background has precipitated developments in France, but that same background is present in all comparable countries.     

It takes two: how Eurosceptic public opinion and party divisions influence party positions

Do parties respond to voters’ preferences on European integration in elections to the European Parliament (EP)? Following recent research that shows political party responsiveness to Eurosceptic attitudes during EP elections is conditioned by party characteristics, this article seeks to understand how party unity on European integration affects party responsiveness to Euroscepticism. It argues that when Eurosceptic attitudes among voters are high and the parties are divided in their position on European integration, parties will be more responsive to voters and take a more Eurosceptic position. To test the theoretical expectations, the study uses data from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, the Euromanifestos Project, and European Election Study for 1989–2009 for over 120 parties across 20 European Union member states. The findings have important implications for understanding the nature of democratic representation in the European Union.     

In the eye of the beholder: voters’ perceptions of party policy shifts

It is normatively desirable that parties’ policy positions match the views of their supporters, as citizens in Western democracies are primarily represented by and through parties. Existing research suggests that parties shift their policy positions, but as of today, there is only weak and inconsistent empirical evidence that voters actually perceive these shifts. Using individual-level panel data from Germany, United Kingdom, Ireland and the Netherlands, this article tests the proposition that voters perceive parties’ policy shifts only on salient issues while remaining oblivious to parties’ changing positions on issues that they do not consider important. The results demonstrate that issue saliency plays a fundamental role in explaining voters’ perceptions of parties’ policy shifts: according to this logic, democratic discourse between the elites and the electorate appears to take place at the level of policy issues that voters care about.     

Beyond Kriesiland: EU integration as a super issue after the Eurocrisis

Where some researchers have seen only a limited impact of Europeanisation on national party politics, others have added a separate European Union dimension to the pre‐existing economic left‐right dimension to model the national political space. This article examines the effects of the European crisis on the national political space across the EU utilising data from the 2014 European Election Survey. It analyses the effect of a country's economic development on the coherence between attitudes towards the EU and economic issues using multilevel regression. Strong evidence is found that in the Southern European debtor states economic and European issues are merging as a result of strong European interference in their economic policy. In the Northern European creditor states a second relevant dimension focuses on cultural issues. These results offer the next step in theorising Europeanisation.     

Putin's popularity since 2010: why did support for the Kremlin plunge,then stabilize?

This paper seeks to explain the surprising decline in Russian President Vladimir Putin's approval rating in 2011. During the previous 10 years, Putin's rating had correlated closely with Russians' perceptions of the state of the economy. Yet the fall in his approval – from 79% in December 2010 to 63% a year later – occurred despite roughly stable economic perceptions. Comparing Levada Center polls from late 2010 and 2011, the paper explores both who (what types of respondents) grew disenchanted with Putin, and why (what issues or grievances prompted this switch). It finds that (a) the fall in support for the Kremlin – although faster among members of the “creative class,” women, the rich, and residents of provincial cities – was broad-based, occurring among all social groups examined; (b) attitudes toward immigration, the West, and Russia's international status, as well as assessments of public service quality, changed little during 2011; (c) Putin's declining popularity most likely reflected stronger – not weaker – economic concerns; although the proportion judging economic performance to be poor did not increase, those who saw economic weakness became much less supportive of the Kremlin. Russians appear to have increasingly blamed their political leaders for unsatisfactory economic and political outcomes.     

两岸和谐关系演进下的台湾民意走向

大陆对台政策自中共十八大之后,持续并稳定。两岸关系也朝向和平发展。理论上来说,这应该是两岸关系的“机遇期”。意外的是,2008年国民党赢得政权后,在台湾“国族认同”与“统独争议”的议题上,民调数字却显示“台湾人”与“主张独立”的比例,比民进党执政八年的任一时期都来得高。难道两岸关系的改善无助于台湾内部走向于分离的转变？作者设法去解读这个怪异现象时发现：冈为民调中有问券设计的吊谛．与解读角序的不同．球让结果耕有所不同．     

How Honest Do Politicians Need to Be?

This article reports findings from a recent survey of citizens' attitudes towards standards in British public life. It provides further evidence that people hold their political leaders to high standards, yet are often disappointed by the reality, and suggests that many citizens tend to blame the practice and institutions of politics for making politicians less honest and trustworthy than they would ideally like. The article argues that reforms to the political system are needed to regain the confidence of the population, but that the manner in which the most recent round of ethics reforms in the House of Commons were introduced may lower the prospects of their achieving this goal.     

Political judgments,perceptions of facts,and partisan effects

We test two competing hypotheses about the impact of partisanship and information on people's political judgments and perceptions of facts using Canadians' reactions to a major scandal. Our findings with respect to subjective political judgments confirm the argument that partisan predispositions are crucial. But there is no evidence to support the argument that the polarizing effect of partisanship is most evident among the most informed. When it comes to perceptions of “objective” facts, the results are consistent with Zaller's reception axiom: the more informed people are, the more likely they are to correctly perceive objective facts. Partisanship does not appear to affect these perceptions.