Citizens rely on information to evaluate the government, but their sources are limited in authoritarian regimes. This study shows that citizens can learn from extraordinary events, such as public safety incidents, which are socially salient, highly visible, and clearly attributable. When the state bears causal responsibility for a safety failure, political trust declines under both a controversial and an uncontroversial response. Using survey data that cover three national crises in contemporary China, the analysis compares respondents in the weeks immediately before and after the incidents. Trust in government declined following the 2011 bullet train crash and the 2018 vaccine scandal, but not following the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake. Further analysis finds no increase in perceived corruption, while perceptions of free expression declined after the train crash but not after the earthquake, consistent with dissatisfaction over information control. The findings have implications for authoritarian accountability and regime stability.

Why is national identity associated with anti-immigrant attitudes in some countries but not others? Existing research documents cross-national heterogeneity but offers limited insight into the conditions under which national identity becomes exclusionary. Building on Social Identity Theory, I argue that ethnic diversity conditions this relationship by shaping how clearly the national prototype is ethnically defined. In less diverse countries, a clearer prototype makes citizens and immigrants more readily comparable, strengthening the exclusionary implications of national identity. By contrast, in more diverse countries, a less ethnically determinate prototype reduces comparability and weakens this link. Multilevel models using the 2003 and 2013 ISSP National Identity modules show that national identity is, on average, positively associated with anti-immigrant attitudes, but that this association weakens significantly as ethnic diversity increases and becomes statistically indistinguishable from zero at high levels of diversity. The pattern remains substantively unchanged when using alternative measures of anti-immigrant attitudes, national identity, and ethnic diversity and after accounting for rival contextual explanations. I also use Eurobarometer data to probe the proposed process, treating perceived national commonality as an indirect indicator of national prototype clarity. Greater ethnic diversity is weakly associated with lower perceived commonality, and the positive association between national identity and negative attitudes toward immigration weakens as perceived commonality declines. These findings highlight the importance of ethnic diversity for understanding the exclusionary potential of national identity.

In protracted conflicts, civilians frequently encounter low-level, hostile actions from adversary civilians in nearby communities, yet the political consequences of these events remain understudied. We investigate this question in the Israeli–Palestinian context, examining how community-level exposure to hostile actions by Israeli settlers shapes Palestinian political attitudes in the West Bank. Leveraging a novel data set containing thousands of geo-coded conflict events from 2010 to 2020 paired with forty-six Palestinian public opinion polls in the West Bank, we find that district-level increases in settler hostilities are significantly associated with heightened political militancy among local Palestinians, associations that are larger and more robust than those from local Israeli military actions. A second empirical strategy examining changes in Palestinian attitudes before and after the establishment of nearby settler outposts reveals that this form of civilian land expropriation likewise leads to modest increases in political militancy among Palestinians in proximate towns. These findings highlight the distinct political impact of localized, low-level civilian actions and territorial expropriation—central but often overlooked features of sectarian territorial conflicts—offering insights for territorial and ethnic disputes globally.

Punitive policies such as migrant detention and benefits sanctions are growing in popularity. Politicians claim that the threat of harsher punishment deters undesired behavior, yet much evidence suggests that this is incorrect. Why, then, is it popular with voters? Building on literature from crime and punishment, I use vignette experiments in the UK to test whether this is because they believe that punishment acts as a deterrent, or because they view it as retribution for immoral behavior. Respondents rated the likelihood of desired behavior from hypothetical migrants and benefits claimants, and from themselves, in response to punishments of varying severity. They believed that some punishment had a deterrent effect but harsher penalties had little further payoff. Punishment was supported because migrants and benefits claimants fail to live up to people’s behavioral standards, particularly amongst authoritarians. Thus punitive measures enact retribution against outgroups, reinforcing moral boundaries and a rule-bound, orderly society.

Public demand suggests that salience and opinion shape how individuals interpret policy, creating openings for framing and value branding to influence those views. I apply this framework to assess public demand for gender equity in name, image, and likeness (NIL) policy and examine how it aligns with the broader debate in higher education concerning diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Using survey data from 1,510 respondents across five states, I find that attitudes toward DEI significantly structure views of gender equity in NIL. Public demand for equity in NIL follows traditional predictors, including political ideology, age, education, and gender, while support for college sports has an unexpected negative association. I also identify foundational connections between NIL and support for regulating diversity and equity in higher education, suggesting that NIL functions as an emerging equity policy domain shaped by the same political and cultural forces that structure views of DEI.

Survey research examining social influence in political behavior has often relied on name generators to measure individuals’ social networks. As the term implies, name generators ask respondents for a list of their network ties—these batteries often focus on core networks, or the handful of intimate contacts with whom the individual discusses important matters. Recent work has broadened its focus from these small, dense, core networks to larger, but less intimate acquaintance networks; this is the broader set of people an individual knows on a first-name basis, and these contacts have been measured with aggregated relational data (ARD) batteries. In this paper we use data from the Civic Health and Institutions Project (CHIP50) and a series of Cooperative Election Study (CES) modules fielded in 2018 and 2024 to examine the reliability and validity of acquaintance network data. Our analysis pays particular attention to points of similarity and distinction between ARD measures and standard name generators, and we close by offering some suggestions to researchers studying patterns of interpersonal interaction in mass publics.

Despite the expansion of non-contributory cash transfer programmes in Latin America – especially during the COVID-19 pandemic – public support for a universal basic income (UBI) remains remarkably low. Using original survey data from seven countries, we find that fewer than 10 per cent of respondents support both the universality and unconditionality that define UBI. Notably, support for UBI is not significantly shaped by socio-economic status or left-right orientation, and current recipients of targeted transfers are no more likely than others to favour UBI. In contrast, support for targeted programmes – particularly for the extreme poor – is robust and explained by income, education and ideology, consistent with classic self-interest models. These findings challenge the view that targeted programmes may serve as stepping stones toward universalist policies. Rather, they suggest that such programmes may consolidate a political logic of deservingness that constrains broader redistributive ambitions.

Political knowledge is a key resource for democratic participation. But, it is unevenly distributed. White, male, affluent, and older citizens consistently demonstrate higher levels of policy knowledge. Membership in an issue public – a group with personal stakes in particular policies – may help narrow these gaps by fostering engagement among those most affected. Using a new, representative state survey of nearly 26,000 respondents, we examine knowledge of 10 salient state policies to assess whether issue-based engagement reduces entrenched inequalities. We find large knowledge disparities across class, race, gender, and age, mirroring broader political disparities. Issue public membership boosts issue-specific knowledge for some disadvantaged groups, especially LGBT individuals and women, but not uniformly. Advantaged members of issue publics, such as white or upper-class respondents, remain better informed than their less advantaged counterparts. These findings indicate that issue publics can mitigate, but not eliminate, policy knowledge disparities.

Do geopolitical considerations affect European citizens’ attitudes toward incoming Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)? This article draws on existing literature to derive hypotheses about the geopolitical drivers of citizens’ opposition to FDI. We test these hypotheses with a conjoint experiment embedded in a survey fielded in the EU’s three largest economies: France, Germany, and Italy (N ≈ 4,500). Our micro-foundational evidence shows that three factors consistently shape opposition to inward FDI across all three countries: (1) concerns about relative gains—citizens are more likely to oppose investments that benefit the sending country more than their own; (2) military alliance status—citizens are less likely to oppose FDI from security allies; and (3) EU membership—citizens are significantly less opposed to investments from other EU Member States. Contrary to prior expectations, we find no evidence of a consistent “China effect.” Overall, the findings suggest that the EU’s recent shift toward a more geopolitical approach to investment screening broadly aligns with the preferences of its public.

In 1998, Leonardo Morlino advanced the theory of ‘anchors of consolidation’, arguing that informal institutions can stabilise democracies with low legitimacy by integrating societal groups with weak democratic commitments. Drawing on the experience of the Italian Communist Party, he posited that parties may anchor citizens through an inclusion–moderation dynamic. This study tests that causal link in the context of Ecuador’s Citizens’ Revolution (2006–2017). Emerging from a political crisis yet witnessing party strengthening, Ecuador provides a unique setting to examine how radical party inclusion shapes democratic attitudes. Using Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) and Latinobarómetro data, we apply logistic and linear regressions, as well as a difference-in-differences design, to evaluate whether PAIS’s inclusion fostered greater democratic support among its followers. The study finds evidence of apparent improvement in democratic attitudes among PAIS sympathisers, but this outcome appears more likely to have stemmed from partisan bias rather than genuine attitudinal change. Nevertheless, the results indicate that the effects of PAIS’s inclusion on satisfaction with democracy in Ecuador parallel those observed for populist radical-right parties in Europe, highlighting cross-cultural and cross-ideological patterns in the way populist parties shape political values.

Omnibus bills often emerge from cross-party collaboration, bundling diverse programs to serve different constituencies. How people evaluate these complex policies remains an open question. We argue that individuals rely on an average-person heuristic, a group-based cognitive shortcut that simplifies policy evaluation by assessing broad distributive benefits. Analyzing multiple waves of survey data on the Farm Bill, a hallmark of American omnibus legislation, we find that perceptions of benefits to the “average American” are strongly and consistently associated with support for the policy package. These effects persist over time and when accounting for dominant alternative explanations, including racial resentment and self-interest. This paper is among the first to investigate public support for omnibus policies, presenting the average person as a relevant group-based heuristic that shapes opinion in complex, redistributive contexts.