Studies have found that women’s representation is more likely to spike after corruption scandals. However, the mechanism underlying this increase remains unclear: are parties more likely to nominate women after corruption scandals, are voters more likely to support women candidates, or is it a combination of both? Using an original dataset of audit results and the gender of 47,000 candidates running in over 10,000 mayoral elections in Mexico (2000–2019), we find that voters drive the effect. While political parties are not more likely to nominate women as candidates in municipalities with recent revelations of spending irregularities, women candidates are more likely to win elections after corruption is uncovered. In contrast to previous studies, which expect strategic parties to be behind the increases in women’s representation following corruption scandals, our findings underscore that increases in women’s representation can happen despite parties and not because of parties.

Many political scientists hold that vitriolic speech against high-profile women has only negligible effects on other women in politics. They also contend that the prevalence of such vitriol is consistent with gender bias having no significant negative impact on most women in politics. This article argues that these sanguine positions rest on inadequate and untested assumptions regarding misogyny, and the role it plays in politics. In the service of putting us in a position to test the relationship between gendered discourse in particular elections and the structural obstacles faced by women in politics, this article develops a conceptualization of political misogyny: nasty claim-making that instills repugnant connotations into women’s collective political identities (e.g., their partisan identities). Attention is also paid to how political misogyny can distribute hatred burdens disproportionately among different groups of women.

The apocalypse is frequently deployed by political movements, especially contemporary climate activists, to advance their causes. This article develops a framework for defending such invocations of the end of the world. With many other political theorists, I suggest that the apocalypse is a dangerous concept, not least because of its association with authoritarian accounts of history. However, we should not reject the apocalypse. I argue for a form of anti-anti-apocalypticism, using the criticisms directed against the concept as a launchpad to rethink it in viable terms. While acknowledging the value of different ways of defending the apocalypse, I highlight the importance of the causes of apocalyptic movements. Simply put, apocalypses from below are defensible because they have the capacity to clarify the political position of the oppressed and open new political possibilities for the group. By contrast, apocalypses from above, because they fail to fulfill these functions, are not.

In this research letter, we examine whether gender and racial bias affect interruption rates at one of the most visible events in American politics: US Supreme Court confirmation hearings. Using original data from 1939 to 2022, we find that male and white participants are more likely to interrupt women and person of color speakers, respectively, relative to male and white speakers. This finding holds for both senators and nominees as interrupters. Our results provide evidence that biased interruptive behavior occurs in even the most public and salient of political settings and that it can be mitigated (or intensified) by shared (or opposite) partisanship among speaking pairs. We also find interruption inequalities are not isolated to women as the interrupted, revealing that people of color in political and legal settings are subject to heightened rates of interruptions as well.

We combine newly collected election data with records of public denials of the results of the 2020 election to estimate the degree to which election-denying Republican candidates over- or underperformed other Republicans in 2022 in statewide and federal elections. We find that the average vote share of election-denying Republicans in statewide races was approximately 3.2 percentage points lower than their co-partisans after accounting for state-level partisanship. However, we find no such underperformance on aggregate for U.S. House elections, perhaps due to the more-partisan nature of many House districts. Together, the results suggest that the types of candidates in American elections who take more-extreme positions tend to underperform, but that these performance gaps are relatively small in the present, polarized political environment.

Expanding suffrage is critical for democratic inclusion. In the United States, noncitizen residents are the latest focus of such (re)enfranchising efforts. Public opinion plays a significant role in the passage of legislation expanding or restricting noncitizen access to local elections. Although elite support for noncitizen suffrage is well-documented, little is known about public opinion toward such noncitizen voter policies. What accounts for voter support for noncitizen electoral participation? We argue that the partisan alignment between noncitizens and U.S. voters shapes U.S. voters’ support for noncitizen voting rights. Evidence from two survey experiments suggests that U.S. voters are pragmatic in their enfranchising preferences: voters increase their support for co-partisan enfranchisement but oppose this same policy when considering out-partisans. These dynamics are present among both Republicans and Democrats, underscoring the societal implications of heightened partisanship on American democracy.

New evidence suggests that the world recently changed for the U.S. Supreme Court owing to its decision to abrogate the abortion rights first announced in Roe v. Wade. In contrast to the conventional wisdom that Court support is little undermined by unpopular rulings, the Dobbs decision generated a substantial knock on the Court’s legitimacy. Two crucial frailties limit these findings, however. First, no one has determined whether the lost legitimacy has persisted, since earlier research relied on a one-shot survey conducted shortly after the decision. Second, no analysis has addressed the “values-based regeneration” hypothesis—that support reemerges not long after a legitimacy hit is inflicted. Based on a nationally representative 2023 survey, my analysis finds that the lost legitimacy has lingered, but institutional support may be being rebuilt owing to its close connection with democratic values. Overall, I conclude that understanding persistence is more complicated than many may have assumed.

For a member of Congress to be a successful lawmaker, they must work collaboratively with their colleagues. Previous work has found that interpersonal relationships among lawmakers are a key predictor of legislative collaboration—particularly among members from opposing parties. In the wake of the events of January 6, 2021, many Democratic lawmakers claimed that their relationships with some of their Republican colleagues were irretrievably broken and they would be unable to continue collaborating with members who voted against certifying electoral votes from the 2020 presidential election. Using data on original cosponsorship and legislative effectiveness from the 115th to 117th Congresses (2017–22) we find that Republican lawmakers who voted against the certification of electoral votes lost bipartisan collaborators and saw a drastic decrease in their legislative effectiveness in the 117th Congress.

More than 1,100 studies have been published that examine the effects of democracy using cross-national data since 2000. This article examines whether these analyses have sufficient statistical power to detect an effect of democracy. Using Monte Carlo simulation and examining consensus effects previously reported in the literature, the article finds that studies are only powered to detect very strong effects of democracy when examining countries over time. This raises questions about what sort of relationships can be analyzed using cross-national data.

Donating to a campaign is inherently costly, and as a result the composition of campaign donors differs from the composition of the electorate. What happens when the financial barriers to campaign finance participation are removed? This paper analyzes Seattle’s recent campaign finance reform, where all registered voters receive four $25 vouchers to donate to candidates abiding by stricter campaign finance restrictions. Utilizing individual- and census block group-level data combined with administrative donation records, I find that those most mobilized by the availability of vouchers belong to groups already overrepresented within the donor pool. This finding is significant across race, income, past political participation, age, and partisanship. In some cases, the availability of vouchers appears to pull the donor pool further from parity with the larger electorate.

In 2020, support for Joe Biden among Latina/o/x voters was 8 percentage points lower than support for Hillary Clinton in 2016, the largest drop of any racial/ethnic group. While much media and academic attention has focused on understanding the impact of misinformation, COVID-19 concerns, and racial animus on Latino voters in 2020, we take a step back and clarify the demographic and core ideological characteristics of Latino voters who voted for Donald Trump in 2020. Using a mix of national survey data, precinct returns, and voter file records, we disaggregate components of electoral change. We find evidence of an increasing alignment between Latinos’ ideology, issue positions, and vote choice. Correspondingly, we observe significant pro-Trump shifts among working-class Latinos and modest evidence of a pro-Trump shift among Latinos closer to the immigration experience. These findings, coupled with an analysis of the 2022 CES, point to a more durable Republican shift than currently assumed.

From the bottom to the top of society, many white men are angry. This article provides a reputation-based rationale for this anger. Individuals care about their social status (elite vs. non-elite) and their social reputation (how they expect others to perceive them). Everyone is uncertain about how one becomes a member of the elite. When new information reveals that the system is biased in favor of white men, the social reputation of all white men decreases, causing a payoff loss. In contrast, policies meant to reduce inequalities in the access to the elite can be supported by some white men and opposed by others. The article highlights how the backlash from white men in recent years needs not be driven by racial animus or sexism and may instead be caused by a loss of status and/or reputation.

Recent scholarship finds that exposure to mass shootings has no effect on Democratic vote shares. While arguably a reasonable proxy for public demand for heightened gun control, this outcome nonetheless reflects myriad issue concerns, with guns being just one issue typically dwarfed in importance by the attention given in electoral campaigns to jobs, the economy, and other social issues. Our research improves the issue-domain correspondence between treatment and outcome by analyzing voting directly on gun policy. We leverage a mass shooting that occurred in Washington state shortly before residents voted on a ballot measure to regulate firearms. Critically, a previous measure on firearms appeared on the ballot in Washington 2 years prior, enabling our analysis to control for pretreatment support for gun control. Across various model specifications, we find that proximity to the shooting was associated with increased support for gun control. We replicate this finding with three additional shootings.

The world faces a forced displacement crisis. Tens of millions of individuals have been forced across international boundaries worldwide. Therefore, the causes and consequences of refugee flows are the subjects of significant social science inquiry. Unfortunately, the historical lack of reliable data on actual refugee flows, country-specific data reporting timelines, and more general pre-2000 data quality issues have significantly limited empirical inferences on these topics. We replicate 28 articles on these topics using data newly released after a multiyear collaboration with the United Nations on annual dyadic flows. We observe major inconsistencies between the newly released flow numbers and the stock-based flow estimates upon which decades of research are based; we also find widespread inappropriate treatment of missing historical values. When we replicate the existing literature using the newly introduced flow data, correcting the treatment of missing historical values, and temporally extending/restricting the study periods, we produce significantly different results.