Research on the relationship between inequality and political engagement has yielded varying conclusions. Some studies suggest that inequality fosters political action, while others indicate the opposite, and some find no significant connections. This study demonstrates that individuals’ reactions to inequality are influenced by their attribution of the causes of low income. Based on a survey of over 3,700 residents in Hong Kong, a region known for its high levels of inequality, this research finds that blame attribution significantly affects intentions to participate in collective action. Individuals often attribute income inequality to three types of factors: structural, fatalistic, and individualistic. Those who attribute inequality to structural factors are more likely to engage in collective and disruptive actions, whereas those who attribute it to personal factors are less likely to participate. Consequently, reducing inequality can contribute to social stability by decreasing the potential for collective action.

Party-based authoritarian regimes have often demonstrated remarkable resilience throughout wars, revolutions, and state-building processes. Yet how they consolidate authority in newly emerging socioeconomic fields that arise from the (partial) liberalization of socioeconomic policies remains insufficiently explored. This study examines the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) penetration into new socioeconomic organizations in the non-public sector, showing how it balances political control with socioeconomic vitality. We identify three strategies—coercion, indoctrination, and incentivization—framed within a process-oriented, three-step model that highlights ongoing CCP-organization dynamics rather than one-sided penetration. Drawing on resource dependence and organizational field theories, we explain both the Party’s strategic choices and organizational responses. This process has generated institutional isomorphism in the non-public sector, where party-building is increasingly viewed as a means of securing legitimacy and enhancing performance. Our analysis contributes not only to understanding CCP adaptability but also to broader debates on how authoritarian ruling parties consolidate authority in emerging fields.

Political apologies have become an important tool for addressing historical injustices, yet their effectiveness—especially in international contexts—remains debated. Prior scholarship has highlighted the limitations of simple verbal apologies and emphasized the importance of tangible and observable measures. What remains unclear, however, is why such measures enhance sincerity. I argue that their effectiveness hinges on the extent to which they are perceived as requiring effort in crafting and delivering apologies. This study examines whether—and if so, how—perceived effort shapes evaluations of sincerity, drawing on two pre-registered survey experiments in South Korea that used the same survey instrument and vignette treatments, in which respondents evaluated apologies issued by Japan for its colonial rule. The results demonstrate that apologies accompanied by concrete reparative measures are perceived as involving greater effort, which in turn elevates both credibility and sincerity. These findings underscore the importance of designing political apologies that are both symbolically meaningful and visibly effortful in international historical disputes.

As many democracies face aging populations, concerns about how to serve senior citizens’ policy interests become increasingly important. Despite seniors forming a growing share of the electorate, they often receive limited legislative attention as a group. How does an aging electorate influence the representation of seniors, and how does this influence vary across different electoral contexts? We argue that the high turnout rates and consistent political preferences of seniors reduce their electoral impact in competitive districts. Therefore, we expect lawmakers’ responsiveness to the relative size of the senior population to vary depending on electoral competitiveness. We test our hypothesis using the case of South Korea, one of the most rapidly aging societies globally. Analyzing over 20,000 bills from the 21st National Assembly in South Korea, we find that a larger senior population is not consistently associated with senior-related legislation. Legislators in competitive districts are less likely to sponsor such legislation, prioritizing bills with broader voter appeal. In contrast, those in safer districts are more responsive to aging constituents. These findings suggest that demographic size alone does not ensure political influence; the electoral context plays a decisive role in shaping substantive representation in aging democracies.

Taiwan’s partisan politics have long centered on Cross-Strait relations with Mainland China, yet over the past decade, cultural and moral issues—such as same-sex marriage, the death penalty, and surrogacy—have introduced new axes of division and intensified polarization. This article traces how civic groups and party actors during the same-sex marriage campaign and the Sunflower Movement framed and mobilized moral debates, and it uses two decades of Taiwan Social Change Survey data to show the rise of issue partisanship around civil rights and family values in the mid-2010s. These cultural cleavages persisted through 2020 without displacing Cross-Strait relations as the dominant divide. Taiwan’s case illustrates how cultural polarization can develop within a geopolitically constrained democracy and East Asian context, contributing to comparative debates on culture wars and partisan polarization.

Public opinion surveys are an indispensable tool for studying politics in Southeast Asia. But publicly available data are often in short supply in the region. To this end, we introduce SIKAP, a harmonized and open-access dataset of 58 weekly surveys (N = 95, 923) conducted in advance of, during, and in the aftermath of the 2024 Indonesian general election. We describe the data collection procedures and assess the quality of the sample. We demonstrate its utility by analyzing the effects of two political events on Indonesian voters’ attitudes in almost real time. First, we show that a constitutional crisis in August 2024 where the coalition of then President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) defied the Constitutional Court’s rulings led to a sharp but ultimately temporary decline in the public’s approval of Jokowi. Second, we show that voters who supported candidates other than Prabowo Subianto in the general election report large and persistent declines in support for democracy in the aftermath.