Lauri Rapeli
Biographic Data
| ID | 1534501 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lauri Rapeli |
| GIVEN NAMES | Lauri |
| FAMILY NAME | Rapeli |
| SIGNATURE | RAPELI L |
| AFFILIATIONS | Åbo Akademi University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0248-2763 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 39 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 351 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 39 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 12 |
Poor mental health does not always reduce political participation: Wrong assumption, wrong samples, or wrong measures
Mental health, like physical health, represents an important resource for participating in politics. We bring new insights from six surveys from five different countries (Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United States) that combine diversified questions on mental health problems and political participation. Unlike previous research on depression, we find only limited evidence for the Resource Hypothesis that mental health p…
The Impact of Increased Learning Opportunities on Political Knowledge: Evidence From Repeated Cross-Sectional Surveys in Finland in 2008 and 2020
In the last 15 years, opportunities for political learning have increased in a way that lacks comparison in recent history. Technological advances have made political content constantly accessible online to most people in Western societies. What effect has this had on political knowledge? This study uses a repeated cross-sectional survey design from Finland, with surveys from 2008 (n = 1,020) and 2020 (n = 1,097). This interval captures the most …
Who’s afraid of cryptoization? Evidence from a survey experiment in Finland
This study examines attitudes toward the economic and political outcomes of widespread cryptocurrency adoption in a survey experiment conducted in Finland. Its goal is to assess how information on the political implications of cryptocurrencies influences individuals' investment tendencies and their views on regulation and technology abolishment. Utilizing a survey experiment design for causal inference, it explores reactions to the perceived econ…
Does it pay to think about the future? Future orientation, ideology, age and vote earning among political candidates
Solving societal problems often requires elected politicians to make uncertain investments, which only provide benefits in the future. However, research on future-oriented democratic policymaking has primarily focused on structural explanations and voter behaviour, paying less attention to politicians’ attitudes. In this study, we examine politicians’ future orientation and its potential link to electoral success. Using the latest Finnish data fr…
Decision‐makers, advisers or educable subjects? Policymakers' perceptions of citizen participation in a Nordic democracy
The perceived disconnect between policymaking elites and citizens has intensified demands for citizen engagement in democracies, but we know little about policymakers' attitudes towards increased citizen involvement. This study presents an in‐depth, mixed‐methods analysis of participatory views of politicians, public officials, and interest group representatives in Finland. We first utilize a unique survey battery presented to representative samp…
The role of political engagement of parents in reducing the gender gap in political self-efficacy
Compared with European men, the political self-efficacy of European women is significantly lower: in all European countries, women are generally more pessimistic about their abilities to understand, influence or participate in politics. Yet, we know surprisingly little about how political self-efficacy develops in general and about what explains the gender gap in particular. In this article, we set out to explore to what extent political self-eff…
Acceptability of mandatory vaccination: A survey experiment on the effects of thresholds and justifications
Mandatory vaccination mightseem like a straightforward solution for reaching a sufficient vaccine coverage during a pandemic. However, the effectiveness of mandatory vaccination is undermined if the public does not perceive such a compulsory policy as acceptable. We report a population-based survey experiment (n = 1,131), conducted in Finland, that addresses the effects that different ways of framing a mandatory vaccination program have on three …
Physical health conditions and political participation in Europe: The moderating effects of age
Unequal political participation is widely considered a problem of democratic representation. Citizens with fewer resources typically report lower levels of participation. Lack of good health has been identified as one barrier to participation. However, poor health may have heterogeneous impacts on participation, depending on the type of health issue. Moreover, poor health may affect participation patterns differently, depending on age. Previous r…
When life happens: The Impact of Life Events on Turnout
Habit is among the most influential explanations for why people vote. Scholars have addressed the impact of individual disruptions to habitual voting, but analyses including several life events are rare. We combine two panel surveys, conducted in the UK during 1991-2017, to examine the impact of unemployment, retirement, changes in partnership status, moving and disability on voting. We distinguish between habitual voters, occasional voters and h…
Down But Not Yet Out: Depression, Political Efficacy, and Voting
Depression is one of the most common health problems in the developed world. Previous research has primarily investigated the relationship between depression and voting, largely overlooking its cognitive foundations. We turn to political efficacy as a key political attitude and precondition for political engagement. We build on research into the cognitive aspects of depression to construct arguments linking depression, political efficacy, and vot…
Personal or Impersonal Evaluations? Political Sophistication and Citizen Conceptions of the Democratic Process
An energetic scholarly debate discusses possible reforms of representative democracy. Some support participatory forms of democracy, others a more elite-driven or technocratic democracy. This study contributes to the growing literature on the subject by emphasizing political sophistication as a theoretically relevant predictor of attitudes to democracy: different models of democracy make different demands regarding the political sophistication of…
Is the unhappy citizen a populist citizen? Linking subjective well-being to populist and nativist attitudes
Economic grievances, globalization, and voter discontent are among the usual explanations for the surge in right-wing populism (RWP) across Western democracies. However, subjective well-being has recently been introduced as an overlooked psychological factor explaining citizens’ democratic support, immigration attitudes, and populist vote choice. Yet we know little about how general well-being, instead of specific negative sentiments, relates to …
Does sports success increase government support? Voter (ir)rationality in a multiparty context
A growing number of studies discuss the impact of non-political factors on the political success of incumbents. Theoretically, this literature addresses core ideas about electoral accountability and voter rationality. Scholars have explored factors such as shark attacks, weather, natural disasters, and sports results. So far, the evidence has been inconclusive and almost exclusively from majoritarian contexts, where government accountability is e…
How Context Matters: The Significance of Political Homogeneity and Language for Political Efficacy
The extent of political efficacy within a community reflects the general state of affairs within that community, with higher levels of political efficacy presumably related to other kinds of socially preferable attitudes. High levels of political efficacy could further be regarded as a glue that keeps a political community together and should be even more important within minority communities. As political efficacy differs across minority communi…
Concerned and willing to pay? Comparing policymaker and citizen attitudes towards climate change
Public opinion about climate change is well documented, but policymaker attitudes are less known. To examine the foundations for policymaking, we analyze congruence in policymaker-citizen attitudes concerning climate change. We use surveys conducted among the Finnish policymaking elite (n = 675) and a representative sample of the Finnish voting-age population (n = 1,701) in 2018–19, which included identical items of climate change concern and wil…
Not just the facts: An index for measuring the information density of political communication
Misinformation and biased opinion-formation plague contemporary politics. Fact-checking, the process of verifying accuracy of political claims, is now an expanding reseach area, but the methodology is underdeveloped. While the journalistic practice of fact-checking is by now well-established as an integral part of political news coverage, academic research requires more stringent methods than what journalists thus far have used. In order to advan…
When do You Want It? Determinants of Future-Oriented Political Thinking
Many studies have examined whether citizens prefer direct or stealth democracy, or participatory democratic processes. This study adds to the emerging literature that instead examines the temporal aspect of citizens’ process preferences. We use a survey with a probabilistic sample of the Finnish voting-age population ( n = 1,906), which includes a measure of the extent to which citizens think democratic decision-making should maximize welfare tod…
Governing through strategies: How does Finland sustain a future-oriented environmental policy for the long term
Can Deliberation Reduce Political Misperceptions? Findings from a Deliberative Experiment on Immigration
How can deliberative democracy contribute to our understanding of political misperceptions? Findings from the field of political sophistication suggest that misperceptions are difficult to change and corrective measures often fail. However, this field of research has paid little attention to deliberation as a mechanism to reduce political misperceptions. Using a deliberative experiment on immigration where participants engaged in either mixed or …
How Will the Covid-19 Pandemic Affect Democracy
In this commentary, we discuss some possible effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in both established and newer democracies. We expect that the pandemic will not have grave long-term effects on established democracies. We assess the future of democracy after COVID-19 in terms of immediate effects on current democratic leaders, and speculate on the long-term effects on support for democratic institutions and principles. We also discuss possible implic…
Interest through necessity? The impact of personal health on the stability of political interest in the United Kingdom
Interest in politics is a key indicator of citizens’ attitudes towards politics. Scholars disagree whether interest is a stable trait developed during adolescence, or if it changes over the life course. We hypothesise that deteriorating health can destabilise the stable sense of political interest because worsening health makes individuals more dependent on public healthcare and increase their attention to politics. Furthermore, we assume that th…
Immediate rewards or delayed gratification? A conjoint survey experiment of the public’s policy preferences
Previous scholarship has focused primarily on how citizens’ form policy preferences and how those preferences are taken into account in democratic decision-making. However, the temporal aspect of policy preferences has received little attention, although many significant societal problems have consequences that extend far into the future. To fill the gap, we examine to what extent citizens are willing to support policies, when rewards can only be…
Fit to govern? Comparing citizen and policymaker perceptions of deliberative democratic innovations
Democratic innovations, such as the introduction of deliberative mini-publics, have attracted increasing attention. The assumption is that involving citizens more directly in policymaking offers a way to address the widespread decline in public trust in the democratic process and traditional forms of engagement, such as voting in elections. While a thriving literature discusses the merits of mini-publics from a citizen perspective, scholars have …
Breaking a habit: The impact of health on turnout and party choice
Turnout and party choice are widely held to be habitual, but little attention has been paid to factors that disrupt the pattern. Good health is an important determinant of political behaviour and a key component in the quality of life. Based on the developmental theory of turnout, we hypothesize that declining health lowers voting propensity over the life course. We employ issue ownership theory to assume that declining health increases the likel…
Fighting Misperceptions and Doubting Journalists’ Objectivity: A Review of Fact-checking Literature
Fact checkers evaluate the truthfulness of political claims appearing in public. The practice has increased enormously in recent years. This review analyses research concerning political fact-checking; it presents what kind of studies have been made about fact-checking and introduces their main findings. Most of the literature focuses either on fact-checking as a profession or on its corrective potential. Research about the effectiveness of fact-…
Healthy voting: The effect of self-reported health on turnout in 30 countries
Down But Not Yet Out: Depression, Political Efficacy, and Voting
Depression is one of the most common health problems in the developed world. Previous research has primarily investigated the relationship between depression and voting, largely overlooking its cognitive foundations. We turn to political efficacy as a key political attitude and precondition for political engagement. We build on research into the cognitive aspects of depression to construct arguments linking depression, political efficacy, and vot…
Just sick of it? Health and political trust in Western Europe
This article explores two theoretical possibilities for why personal health may affect political trust: the psychological‐democratic contract theory, and the role of personal experience in opinion formation. It argues that citizens with health impairments are more likely to experience the direct effects of political decisions as they are more dependent on public health services. Negative subjective evaluations of public services can lower trust l…
Do Surveys Overestimate or Underestimate Socioeconomic Differences in Voter Turnout? Evidence from Administrative Registers
Surveys generally overestimate the overall level of voter turnout in elections due to both the misreporting of voting and nonresponse. It is sometimes argued that socioeconomic differences in turnout are exaggerated in surveys because social desirability has a more pronounced effect on eligible voters in more advantaged socioeconomic positions. However, the contribution of nonresponse bias has not been taken into consideration in these assessment…
Public Support for Expert Decision-Making: Evidence from Finland
Those sceptical of the competence of the ordinary citizens have often argued for some form of epistemic, Platonic rule by ‘wise’ experts. Using the 2011 Finnish National Election Study, this article compares popular support for representative democracy with expert democracy. The analysis is structured around two hypotheses. The competence hypothesis states that high political competence is negatively associated with support for expert decision ma…
Immediate rewards or delayed gratification? A conjoint survey experiment of the public’s policy preferences
Previous scholarship has focused primarily on how citizens’ form policy preferences and how those preferences are taken into account in democratic decision-making. However, the temporal aspect of policy preferences has received little attention, although many significant societal problems have consequences that extend far into the future. To fill the gap, we examine to what extent citizens are willing to support policies, when rewards can only be…
In sickness and in health: Personal health and political participation in the Nordic countries
In search of a better understanding of inequalities in citizen political engagement, scholars have begun addressing the relationship between personal health and patterns of political behavior. This study focuses on the impact of personal health on various forms of political participation. The analysis contributes to existing knowledge by examining a number of different participation forms beyond just voting. Using European Social Survey data from…
Comparing Local, National and EU Knowledge: The Ignorant Public Reassessed
Empirical research has repeatedly confirmed the political ignorance of ordinary citizens, but democracy prevails. This article offers a new perspective into this paradox by arguing that typical political knowledge indicators are inadequate because they only measure national‐level knowledge. The study makes two contributions. First, it compares national, local and European Union political knowledge. Second, it does so with a nationally representat…
Breaking a habit: The impact of health on turnout and party choice
Turnout and party choice are widely held to be habitual, but little attention has been paid to factors that disrupt the pattern. Good health is an important determinant of political behaviour and a key component in the quality of life. Based on the developmental theory of turnout, we hypothesize that declining health lowers voting propensity over the life course. We employ issue ownership theory to assume that declining health increases the likel…
Fit to govern? Comparing citizen and policymaker perceptions of deliberative democratic innovations
Democratic innovations, such as the introduction of deliberative mini-publics, have attracted increasing attention. The assumption is that involving citizens more directly in policymaking offers a way to address the widespread decline in public trust in the democratic process and traditional forms of engagement, such as voting in elections. While a thriving literature discusses the merits of mini-publics from a citizen perspective, scholars have …
How Context Matters: The Significance of Political Homogeneity and Language for Political Efficacy
The extent of political efficacy within a community reflects the general state of affairs within that community, with higher levels of political efficacy presumably related to other kinds of socially preferable attitudes. High levels of political efficacy could further be regarded as a glue that keeps a political community together and should be even more important within minority communities. As political efficacy differs across minority communi…
Decision‐makers, advisers or educable subjects? Policymakers' perceptions of citizen participation in a Nordic democracy
The perceived disconnect between policymaking elites and citizens has intensified demands for citizen engagement in democracies, but we know little about policymakers' attitudes towards increased citizen involvement. This study presents an in‐depth, mixed‐methods analysis of participatory views of politicians, public officials, and interest group representatives in Finland. We first utilize a unique survey battery presented to representative samp…
Governing through strategies: How does Finland sustain a future-oriented environmental policy for the long term
Talking with like-minded people—Equality and efficacy in enclave deliberation
Enclaves of like-minded people are often seen as problematic from a democratic point of view, as they have been found to lead to both group polarization and an amplification of cognitive errors. Nevertheless, enclaves can also act as protected spaces have the opportunity to discuss politics with their peers. As a result, people who are less well-endowed to face political disagreement can find it easier to engage in politics. In order to study the…
Community attachment and municipal economy: Public attitudes towards wind power in a local context
How Will the Covid-19 Pandemic Affect Democracy
In this commentary, we discuss some possible effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in both established and newer democracies. We expect that the pandemic will not have grave long-term effects on established democracies. We assess the future of democracy after COVID-19 in terms of immediate effects on current democratic leaders, and speculate on the long-term effects on support for democratic institutions and principles. We also discuss possible implic…
Personal or Impersonal Evaluations? Political Sophistication and Citizen Conceptions of the Democratic Process
An energetic scholarly debate discusses possible reforms of representative democracy. Some support participatory forms of democracy, others a more elite-driven or technocratic democracy. This study contributes to the growing literature on the subject by emphasizing political sophistication as a theoretically relevant predictor of attitudes to democracy: different models of democracy make different demands regarding the political sophistication of…
Does Health Affect Party Identification? Evidence from German Panel Data
Recent research has shown the effect of health on voter turnout, arguing that attenuated health depresses voting. However, we know little about how health is connected to the psychological factors, such as party identification, that precede actual political participation. Employing data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), we show that when a person’s health deteriorates, the degree of partisan attachment declines, whereas health improvem…
Does it pay to think about the future? Future orientation, ideology, age and vote earning among political candidates
Solving societal problems often requires elected politicians to make uncertain investments, which only provide benefits in the future. However, research on future-oriented democratic policymaking has primarily focused on structural explanations and voter behaviour, paying less attention to politicians’ attitudes. In this study, we examine politicians’ future orientation and its potential link to electoral success. Using the latest Finnish data fr…
Is the unhappy citizen a populist citizen? Linking subjective well-being to populist and nativist attitudes
Economic grievances, globalization, and voter discontent are among the usual explanations for the surge in right-wing populism (RWP) across Western democracies. However, subjective well-being has recently been introduced as an overlooked psychological factor explaining citizens’ democratic support, immigration attitudes, and populist vote choice. Yet we know little about how general well-being, instead of specific negative sentiments, relates to …
Concerned and willing to pay? Comparing policymaker and citizen attitudes towards climate change
Public opinion about climate change is well documented, but policymaker attitudes are less known. To examine the foundations for policymaking, we analyze congruence in policymaker-citizen attitudes concerning climate change. We use surveys conducted among the Finnish policymaking elite (n = 675) and a representative sample of the Finnish voting-age population (n = 1,701) in 2018–19, which included identical items of climate change concern and wil…
Does Sophistication Affect Electoral Outcomes
It is widely assumed that a representative democracy requires an enlightened citizenry in order to function properly. The competence of citizens has been studied extensively and the sociodemographic determinants of political sophistication are particularly well known. Much less is known about whether and how citizen competence affects electoral behaviour and outcomes. This article reviews the existing literature on these topics. Despite the wides…
Who to punish? Retrospective voting and knowledge of government composition in a multiparty system
Performance voting studies implicitly assume that voters know who the government is, and can thus judge office-holders retrospectively. Scholars have recently addressed the issue in a majoritarian electoral context. This study expands into looking at (1) knowledge of the government in a multiparty setting by (2) focusing on the sociodemographic determinants of that knowledge. Using a 2008 survey data from Finland, the study finds that ignorance o…
When life happens: The Impact of Life Events on Turnout
Habit is among the most influential explanations for why people vote. Scholars have addressed the impact of individual disruptions to habitual voting, but analyses including several life events are rare. We combine two panel surveys, conducted in the UK during 1991-2017, to examine the impact of unemployment, retirement, changes in partnership status, moving and disability on voting. We distinguish between habitual voters, occasional voters and h…
Interest through necessity? The impact of personal health on the stability of political interest in the United Kingdom
Interest in politics is a key indicator of citizens’ attitudes towards politics. Scholars disagree whether interest is a stable trait developed during adolescence, or if it changes over the life course. We hypothesise that deteriorating health can destabilise the stable sense of political interest because worsening health makes individuals more dependent on public healthcare and increase their attention to politics. Furthermore, we assume that th…
Healthy voting: The effect of self-reported health on turnout in 30 countries
The Conception of Citizen Knowledge in Democratic Theory
What according to democratic theorists should the ordinary citizen know about politics? What does several decades of empirical research about citizens' political knowledge tell us? And why should we c
What Should the Citizen Know about Politics: Two Approaches to the Measurement of Political Knowledge
The aim of this study is to provide an empirical example of how an election-related empirical indicator of political knowledge can be constructed. Studies of political knowledge have shown that most citizens fall short of the democratic ideal in terms of their knowledge about politics. But according to critics it is unclear what the reference point for such conclusions has been. The critics say that indicators of political knowledge lack a transp…
Knowledge and Opinion: The Immigration Issue in the 2011 Finnish Parliamentary Elections
Using the Finnish National Election Study, this article examines whether one's opinion about immigration is related to the factual knowledge one has about it. Opinion is measured both in terms of a general attitude toward immigration and attitude toward work-related immigration. Contrary to what was expected, low issue saliency and high knowledge about immigration combined to predict pro-immigration attitudes. Additionally, low knowledge about im…
Comparing Local, National and EU Knowledge: The Ignorant Public Reassessed
Empirical research has repeatedly confirmed the political ignorance of ordinary citizens, but democracy prevails. This article offers a new perspective into this paradox by arguing that typical political knowledge indicators are inadequate because they only measure national‐level knowledge. The study makes two contributions. First, it compares national, local and European Union political knowledge. Second, it does so with a nationally representat…
Community attachment and municipal economy: Public attitudes towards wind power in a local context
In sickness and in health: Personal health and political participation in the Nordic countries
In search of a better understanding of inequalities in citizen political engagement, scholars have begun addressing the relationship between personal health and patterns of political behavior. This study focuses on the impact of personal health on various forms of political participation. The analysis contributes to existing knowledge by examining a number of different participation forms beyond just voting. Using European Social Survey data from…
Talking with like-minded people—Equality and efficacy in enclave deliberation
Enclaves of like-minded people are often seen as problematic from a democratic point of view, as they have been found to lead to both group polarization and an amplification of cognitive errors. Nevertheless, enclaves can also act as protected spaces have the opportunity to discuss politics with their peers. As a result, people who are less well-endowed to face political disagreement can find it easier to engage in politics. In order to study the…
Public Support for Expert Decision-Making: Evidence from Finland
Those sceptical of the competence of the ordinary citizens have often argued for some form of epistemic, Platonic rule by ‘wise’ experts. Using the 2011 Finnish National Election Study, this article compares popular support for representative democracy with expert democracy. The analysis is structured around two hypotheses. The competence hypothesis states that high political competence is negatively associated with support for expert decision ma…
Who to punish? Retrospective voting and knowledge of government composition in a multiparty system
Performance voting studies implicitly assume that voters know who the government is, and can thus judge office-holders retrospectively. Scholars have recently addressed the issue in a majoritarian electoral context. This study expands into looking at (1) knowledge of the government in a multiparty setting by (2) focusing on the sociodemographic determinants of that knowledge. Using a 2008 survey data from Finland, the study finds that ignorance o…
Just sick of it? Health and political trust in Western Europe
This article explores two theoretical possibilities for why personal health may affect political trust: the psychological‐democratic contract theory, and the role of personal experience in opinion formation. It argues that citizens with health impairments are more likely to experience the direct effects of political decisions as they are more dependent on public health services. Negative subjective evaluations of public services can lower trust l…
Does Sophistication Affect Electoral Outcomes
It is widely assumed that a representative democracy requires an enlightened citizenry in order to function properly. The competence of citizens has been studied extensively and the sociodemographic determinants of political sophistication are particularly well known. Much less is known about whether and how citizen competence affects electoral behaviour and outcomes. This article reviews the existing literature on these topics. Despite the wides…
Fighting Misperceptions and Doubting Journalists’ Objectivity: A Review of Fact-checking Literature
Fact checkers evaluate the truthfulness of political claims appearing in public. The practice has increased enormously in recent years. This review analyses research concerning political fact-checking; it presents what kind of studies have been made about fact-checking and introduces their main findings. Most of the literature focuses either on fact-checking as a profession or on its corrective potential. Research about the effectiveness of fact-…
Does Health Affect Party Identification? Evidence from German Panel Data
Recent research has shown the effect of health on voter turnout, arguing that attenuated health depresses voting. However, we know little about how health is connected to the psychological factors, such as party identification, that precede actual political participation. Employing data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), we show that when a person’s health deteriorates, the degree of partisan attachment declines, whereas health improvem…
Do Surveys Overestimate or Underestimate Socioeconomic Differences in Voter Turnout? Evidence from Administrative Registers
Surveys generally overestimate the overall level of voter turnout in elections due to both the misreporting of voting and nonresponse. It is sometimes argued that socioeconomic differences in turnout are exaggerated in surveys because social desirability has a more pronounced effect on eligible voters in more advantaged socioeconomic positions. However, the contribution of nonresponse bias has not been taken into consideration in these assessment…
Can Deliberation Reduce Political Misperceptions? Findings from a Deliberative Experiment on Immigration
How can deliberative democracy contribute to our understanding of political misperceptions? Findings from the field of political sophistication suggest that misperceptions are difficult to change and corrective measures often fail. However, this field of research has paid little attention to deliberation as a mechanism to reduce political misperceptions. Using a deliberative experiment on immigration where participants engaged in either mixed or …
How Will the Covid-19 Pandemic Affect Democracy
In this commentary, we discuss some possible effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in both established and newer democracies. We expect that the pandemic will not have grave long-term effects on established democracies. We assess the future of democracy after COVID-19 in terms of immediate effects on current democratic leaders, and speculate on the long-term effects on support for democratic institutions and principles. We also discuss possible implic…
Interest through necessity? The impact of personal health on the stability of political interest in the United Kingdom
Interest in politics is a key indicator of citizens’ attitudes towards politics. Scholars disagree whether interest is a stable trait developed during adolescence, or if it changes over the life course. We hypothesise that deteriorating health can destabilise the stable sense of political interest because worsening health makes individuals more dependent on public healthcare and increase their attention to politics. Furthermore, we assume that th…
Immediate rewards or delayed gratification? A conjoint survey experiment of the public’s policy preferences
Previous scholarship has focused primarily on how citizens’ form policy preferences and how those preferences are taken into account in democratic decision-making. However, the temporal aspect of policy preferences has received little attention, although many significant societal problems have consequences that extend far into the future. To fill the gap, we examine to what extent citizens are willing to support policies, when rewards can only be…
Fit to govern? Comparing citizen and policymaker perceptions of deliberative democratic innovations
Democratic innovations, such as the introduction of deliberative mini-publics, have attracted increasing attention. The assumption is that involving citizens more directly in policymaking offers a way to address the widespread decline in public trust in the democratic process and traditional forms of engagement, such as voting in elections. While a thriving literature discusses the merits of mini-publics from a citizen perspective, scholars have …
Breaking a habit: The impact of health on turnout and party choice
Turnout and party choice are widely held to be habitual, but little attention has been paid to factors that disrupt the pattern. Good health is an important determinant of political behaviour and a key component in the quality of life. Based on the developmental theory of turnout, we hypothesize that declining health lowers voting propensity over the life course. We employ issue ownership theory to assume that declining health increases the likel…
Not just the facts: An index for measuring the information density of political communication
Misinformation and biased opinion-formation plague contemporary politics. Fact-checking, the process of verifying accuracy of political claims, is now an expanding reseach area, but the methodology is underdeveloped. While the journalistic practice of fact-checking is by now well-established as an integral part of political news coverage, academic research requires more stringent methods than what journalists thus far have used. In order to advan…
When do You Want It? Determinants of Future-Oriented Political Thinking
Many studies have examined whether citizens prefer direct or stealth democracy, or participatory democratic processes. This study adds to the emerging literature that instead examines the temporal aspect of citizens’ process preferences. We use a survey with a probabilistic sample of the Finnish voting-age population ( n = 1,906), which includes a measure of the extent to which citizens think democratic decision-making should maximize welfare tod…
Governing through strategies: How does Finland sustain a future-oriented environmental policy for the long term
Does sports success increase government support? Voter (ir)rationality in a multiparty context
A growing number of studies discuss the impact of non-political factors on the political success of incumbents. Theoretically, this literature addresses core ideas about electoral accountability and voter rationality. Scholars have explored factors such as shark attacks, weather, natural disasters, and sports results. So far, the evidence has been inconclusive and almost exclusively from majoritarian contexts, where government accountability is e…
Political science (39 works) · Politics (35 works) · Law (29 works) · Psychology (26 works) · Economics (24 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (24 works) · Law (24 works) · Sociology (20 works) · Social Psychology (17 works) · Social Psychology (17 works)