Despite their demographic size and growing political influence, African youth remain understudied in research on political participation. This article examines how two structural shifts, youth cohort size and social media use, independently and jointly shape electoral and protest behaviour across 40 African countries. Using Afrobarometer data (2016–2023) and complementary contextual datasets, we find that individual socio-economic factors remain the strongest predictors of participation, but demographic structure and digital engagement also matter. Larger youth cohorts are associated with a greater likelihood of voting. Social media use is connected with increases in protest participation while reducing the likelihood of voting, and its interaction with youth cohort size shapes both behaviours in important, non-linear ways. These findings challenge assumptions that youthful populations inherently drive unrest and show that digital mobilisation is strongly conditioned by the demographic context. Our study has significant implications for democratic legitimacy and youth inclusion in Africa’s rapidly changing political environments.

I present an objection to the idea of democracy as an intrinsically fair procedure. I show that this idea rests on the assumption that citizens have equal stakes in their polity’s collective decisions. I then argue that, in real-world societies, this assumption does not hold. First, I claim that participants’ stakes in a collective decision are proportional to the level of risk the decision imposes on them. I then show that, in real-world societies, the polity’s decisions impose much higher risks on the worst off compared to their wealthier fellows. Hence, the former have higher stakes in their polity’s decisions, compared to the latter. My argument thus shows that, in the deeply unequal societies we inhabit, democracy is not an intrinsically fair procedure. I then discuss my argument’s implications for a theory of procedural fairness.

Spanish-language appeals are a common tool for mobilizing Latino voters, yet most research treats Spanish as a uniform cue of a panethnic Latino identity. This paper argues that Spanish-language communication operates through a dual-cue logic: it can signal shared panethnicity, while the accent of delivery simultaneously cues national origin attachments. Using a preregistered survey experiment of 953 Mexican-origin Latinos, we test how accent congruence—whether the accent in a Spanish-language appeal matches listeners’ national origin background—shapes evaluations of a Latino candidate. Respondents exposed to a Puerto Rican accent rated the candidate less favorably and perceived weaker commitment to the Mexican-American community than those exposed to a Mexican accent. These findings show that accent incongruence weakens the link between language and representation, highlighting how subtle linguistic variation can complicate identity-based outreach and efforts to mobilize the nation’s second-largest ethno-racial group.

Do American voters of East Asian immigrant backgrounds decide their vote choice based on international issues related to their home countries, or are immigrant-dense communities focused on domestic issues like most American voters? We evaluate these questions using two state senate elections (2022 and 2024) in a highly dense immigrant district (17th State Senate District, Brooklyn, New York), comparing the electoral impact of a high-salience international issue (Taiwan) against a divisive domestic issue (a proposed homeless shelter). We develop measures for both factors and test them with precinct-level data. We find that despite the high share of immigrant-background voters and growing attention to the Taiwan issue in American politics in recent years, the homeless shelter issue dominated the subnational electoral politics of this district. We buttress these results with two analyses of East Asian CMPS respondents, finding that domestic economic issues are more important to these voters than international concerns.

European elections consistently show lower turnout compared to national elections. Two types of explanations have been proposed. The first is the “don’t know” explanation: European citizens are not adequately informed about what the EU does, what the role of the European Parliament (EP) is, and what impact their vote can have. The second explanation is that they “don’t care”: voters do not care about European elections because they might think that EU policies do not affect them or that the European Parliament is not an important actor in EU politics. I use a between-subject survey experiment in 16 EU countries, with approximately 30,000 respondents, one month before the 2024 European elections, with a follow-up in the days after the vote, to see whether giving voters more information about what the European Parliament does and presenting respondents with hypothetical increases in the powers of the European Parliament, affects their intention to vote and eventual real-world vote. Results show that information increases likelihood to vote. Importantly, these effects last and increase actual voting propensity a month later. Surprisingly, hypothetical increases in the powers of the EP decrease the likelihood to vote among almost all groups of respondents. Among respondents that are skeptical of the EU or perceive a democratic deficit, this negative effect is more pronounced. Even among pro-EU respondents and among those that prefer to see a stronger role for the Commission, the backlash is strong. When considering increasing the powers of the EP, the European Union has little to gain and much to lose when it comes to civic participation. The EU needs to first improve its legitimacy before considering political reforms.

Several groups in democratic polities are legally excluded from voting. Are they thus also excluded from democratic representation? In this article, we focus on the political inclusion of underage youth and migrants. We theorize that proxy representation of their interests might occur through two mechanisms: mechanical or solidarity representation. Drawing on parallel citizen and politician surveys in 14 countries (N citizens = 27,465; N national politicians = 1,185), we find that both groups have some preferences that are not automatically matched by either the general electorate or politicians. While underage youth’s preferences are at least matched by young voters (aged 18 to 25 years), this is not the case for migrant non-voters. Second, we show that citizens and politicians largely consider youth, children, and future generations – but not migrants – to deserve political representation equal to that of adult citizens. In sum, our evidence suggests proxy representation is a weak alternative to enfranchisement, especially for the migrant population.

Groups often agree that change is needed, but differing preferences and information may still lead to difficulty coordinating on a particular alternative. In a laboratory experiment, we study coordination and information aggregation in a divided-majority voting game with public information and conflicting preferences. Voters observe private signals and a public signal about whether alternative $A$ or $B$ is socially optimal. Unless sufficiently many voters agree, an inferior default $C$ occurs. When the public signal is more accurate than the private signal and voters have common preferences, most voters coordinate on the public signal. However, when public-signal accuracy is reduced or preferences conflict, voters follow the public signal less frequently. While reduced public-signal accuracy substantially increases the frequency of coordination failure, conflicting preferences between subgroups do not. These results highlight the importance of accurate public information in achieving collective action.

How does identity threat affect mass political participation during times of autocratization? Building on social identity and group threat literatures, we theorize that perceived threats to Hong Konger identity increase voter turnout; however, the political salience of this threat is contingent on the degree of autocratization. We test this argument utilizing the case of Hong Kong, whose ongoing incorporation into the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has entered an unprecedented era of autocratization. We argue that threats to Hong Konger identity came to mobilize voter participation, especially as autocratization progressed in Hong Kong. Hong Kongers resisted during this period of political change through their intention to turn out to vote. We conducted three original experiments during different transitionary periods of Hong Kong’s autocratic shift. We find that priming identity threat had no effect on voter turnout before Hong Kong’s autocratic divergence. However, once more extreme forms of autocratization began, Hong Kongers assigned to an identical identity threat treatment were substantially more likely to report a higher likelihood of voting. This mobilizing effect persisted in a third experiment. Our results suggest a paradox where citizens’ propensity to vote increases when faced with perceived shrinking opportunities to participate in elections during times of authoritarian transition.

This contribution offers an overview of electoral practice in the Russian Empire up to 1917. The voting procedure that became standard from the 1770s onwards did not involve written ballots. But there was still an extensive graphosphere of electoral documentation, petitions, and protests. By attending to these written traces, we can observe how a pre-modern tradition of voting as community obligation evolved in the late imperial era to incorporate elements of citizenship and representation.

How does industrial decline influence politics? I propose three mechanisms linking industrial decline to voting. First, if unemployment soars as a consequence of a plant closure, this will result in local communities being economically deprived, which leads to lower support for the incumbent. Second, blame attribution should also play an important role since incumbents can be blamed for their handling of plant closures. Third, I argue that if people are compensated, this anti-incumbent effect should be reduced. I leverage the case of the closing of Lindø Steel Shipyard in Denmark to test in a quasi-experimental setting how a plant closure is linked to voting. Leveraging a difference-in-differences (DiD) design with national election data at the municipality level from 2001–2019, I first find that the closing of the shipyard reduced votes for the right-wing incumbent government. Second, I find that the closures increased unemployment in the short to medium term, and unemployment is negatively correlated with votes for the incumbent. Third, relying on survey data and interview data, I showcase that the government was blamed for its handling of the closure and the EU was credited for its support. Fourth, leveraging an event study design, I find that the political effects are not persistent. In the election, after receiving the compensation, the effects become insignificant, which at least suggests that the compensation could have been effective.

A serious challenge facing Western democracies is the falling propensity of successive cohorts of citizens to vote. Over the last 50 years, newly eligible voters – particularly from poorer backgrounds – have become less likely to vote in their first elections, and more likely to develop habits of non‐voting. This trend has prompted greater interest in policies with the potential to increase first‐time voter turnout, such as lowering the voting age or compulsory political education. Despite a growing academic interest in volunteering as a means of youth political expression or route to civic revival, however, the promotion of youth volunteering has not been seriously considered as a potential tool to help address generational turnout decline.

An extensive literature argues that volunteering can increase first‐time voter turnout, but it is hindered by the limited use of panel data and failure to account for confounding and selection effects. It has not, moreover, considered the potential for the effects of childhood volunteering to be conditional on prior political socialisation, particularly the influence of parents, which is necessary to assess its potential to reduce turnout gaps reflecting socio‐economic status. This study uses the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study and structural equation modelling to overcome these limitations and examine the impact of childhood volunteering on the turnout of newly eligible voters. It shows that for most young volunteers there is no significant benefit, but for the children of politically disengaged parents, volunteering does have a significant, positive effect.