Political Behavior

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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Independent Political Networks: Comparing the Discussion Network Size and Composition of Partisans, Leaners, and Independents - Political Behavior Most prior U.S. political discussion research has failed to pay close attention to the networks of political independents, and to the differences between true partisans, leaners, and true independents. This is in direct contrast to the (appropriately) growing research attention paid to the decades-long rise in the proportion of independents and the decline of true partisans. This study presents representative U.S. survey data that compares political discussion frequency, network size, and the partisan composition of the discussion networks of partisans, leaners, and independents. After applying controls for ideological strength and political interest, we find that the three groups do not differ in discussion frequency or network size. However, there are meaningful differences across the groups in three different network composition measures, including partisan bias. We interpret our findings in the context of both applied measurement considerations and normative democratic expectations of partisan diversity within discussion networks.

How do independents talk politics? Eveland & Gee show that while partisans & true independents have similar discussion frequency & network size, their networks differ in partisan composition, shaping democratic diversity. #PoliticalBehavior
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Pro-climate Voting in Response to Local Flooding - Political Behavior Political Behavior -

Can local climate disasters shift voting behavior? Damsbo-Svendsen finds severe flooding in Denmark boosts support for pro-climate parties & candidates, evidence that personal experience with climate risks raises issue salience. #ClimatePolitics
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Media Exposure to Highly Skilled Immigrants and Attitudes Toward Immigration - Political Behavior Can exposure to successful immigrants in the mass media affect perceptions of immigrants and alter attitudes toward immigration? To address this question, I study the case of Ozlem Tureci and Ugur Sah...

Can media stories about immigrant success shift public opinion? Unan shows German coverage of BioNTech’s Turkish-German founders boosted support for easing immigration, evidence that positive exposure can reshape perceptions. #Immigration
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Pathways to Substantive Representation: Policy Congruence and Policy Knowledge Among Canadian Local Politicians - Political Behavior In recent years, new data and methods have reinvigorated research on two central elements of elite political behavior: politicians’ congruence with and knowledge of citizens’ opinions. Here, we survey...

Do local politicians know their constituents’ views, or just happen to align with them? Lucas, Sheffer & Loewen show congruence and perceptual accuracy are intertwined pathways to substantive representation in Canada. #Representation
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Tilly versus Milward: Experimental Evidence of Public Preferences for European Defense Amidst the Russian Threat - Political Behavior Following the “bellicist” school of state formation, the external threat of war is expected to spur polity formation by centralizing military capacity (Tilly, in Coercion, Capital, and European States...

Russia’s invasion was expected to centralize EU defense, echoing Tilly’s state-formation logic. But Moise, Truchlewski & Oana show public preferences lean Milward—threats strengthen national coordination, not EU centralization. #Security
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Seeking the Public Good: Public Service Motivation and Political Ambition - Political Behavior Many previous studies have shown that public service motivation (PSM) is associated with public sector employment. However, with few exceptions, such studies have focused on unelected positions in pub...

Public service motivation isn’t just about bureaucrats. Hassell, Hollibaugh & Miles show it also predicts ambition for elected, judicial & high-level public sector roles. APM transcends institutions in shaping public service goals. #PublicService
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Using Cell-phone Mobility Data to Study Voter Turnout - Political Behavior Studies of voting behavior in some settings may be hampered by poor data availability or unsuitably large units of aggregation for reported turnout. We propose and demonstrate a practical big-data sol...

Big data meets democracy: Harada, Ito & Smith show how cell-phone mobility data tracks voter turnout. By mapping GPS near polling stations, they uncover how distance shapes the cost of voting. #Elections #VoterTurnout
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Winning At All Costs? How Negative Partisanship Affects Voter Decision-Making - Political Behavior Do voters who dislike the other side prefer candidates who can win, even if they are less representative? Negative partisanship is an important feature of American politics, but few scholars have exam...

Negative partisanship reshapes primaries. Albert & Costa show voters who strongly dislike the other side prioritize electability over representation—trading ideological fit for candidates they believe can win. #Elections #NegativePartisanship
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The Politics of Rural Hospital Closures - Political Behavior Who do citizens hold responsible for outcomes and experiences? Hundreds of rural hospitals have closed or significantly reduced their capacity since just 2010, leaving much of the rural U.S. without a...

Rural hospital closures reshape politics as much as health care. Shepherd finds voters in communities losing hospitals shifted Republican, even though closures were more common in GOP-led states without Medicaid expansion. #HealthPolitics
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Does Peer Socialization Within Cohorts Foster Political Attitudes? A Longitudinal Study of Elite Business Students - Political Behavior The association between higher education and political attitudes is well-recognized, and research suggests that socialization amongst peers is one of the most probable mechanisms explaining a possible...

Peer socialization in elite business schools may not drive political attitudes after all. Lindskog, Gustafsson & Voytiv show that changes reflect self-selection more than cohort influence, with Covid disruptions underscoring the limits of socialization.
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Editorial Expression of Concern: Reframing Gendered Issues: Intersectional Identity Frames and Policy Agendas - Political Behavior Political Behavior -

Editorial Expression of Concern: Reframing Gendered Issues: Intersectional Identity Frames and Policy Agenda
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Making Issues Matter: Local Media and Policy-Based Evaluations of Politicians - Political Behavior Does the media enhance issue accountability? Many argue it does by covering where politicians stand on policy. However, evidence of this process is limited and fails to address two alternatives. First...

Peterson & Jeong find that local media strengthens issue accountability. By reducing uncertainty about legislators’ policy positions, news makes voters more likely to evaluate politicians on issues, not just party lines. #MediaAndPolitics
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