Young people today are trapped in a vicious cycle of political alienation characterized by their low interest and knowledge of politics, their declining participation in elections, and their lack of representation. How can we break this cycle? One possibility would be to increase the number of young candidates, which through symbolic representation and affinity voting, could increase youth voter turnout. We test this hypothesis using data from 47 elections in 28 countries. Through bivariate and multivariate statistics, our hypothesis is not confirmed. Instead, we find that rather than increasing youth turnout, increasing the number of young candidates has a reverse effect, and decreases youth turnout. We also find more young candidates do not lead to more young representatives. While we can only speculate about this null/ negative finding, we assume that just adding token youth candidates is not enough to increase youth voter turnout, therefore future research should focus on other potential solutions.
This paper challenges the theoretical foundation on which contemporary research on affective polarisation rests. Since Iyengar et al., scholars have largely attributed partisan hostility to social identity theory, assuming that group membership automatically produces both in-group favouritism and out-group dislike. I argue that this interpretation is based on a fundamental misreading of Tajfel’s original theory. The minimal-group experiments that gave rise to social identity theory examined behavioural discrimination in resource allocation, not emotional hostility towards out-groups. By conflating discrimination with dislike, subsequent research has overstated the emotional consequences of partisan identity while neglecting the role of intergroup conflict. Drawing on realistic conflict theory, this article develops a conflict-centred framework that distinguishes identity, discriminatory behaviour, and negative affect. It shows that hostile emotions towards out-groups arise from conflict rather than from social categorisation itself. This reinterpretation clarifies a long-standing conceptual error and situates affective polarisation within a broader theory of group conflict and political emotion.
In recent years, a kind of “Berlin Wall” has emerged between the study of “revolutions” and “maximalist campaigns.” Although scholars in these two traditions analyze closely related phenomena, they use different terminology, bodies of literature, and empirical conventions. We argue that this separation is analytically costly and prevents fruitful dialogue. On one hand, this leads to the dismissal of the accomplishments of all four preceding generations of revolutionary theory by the students of “maximalist campaigns”/“organized resistance”/“civil resistance”/“dissident campaigns”/“civilian revolts,” without any justifiable rationale, which leads to the fact that those studies tend to produce rather theoretically shallow results. In the meantime, the revolution students’ ignorance of the findings of the “maximalist campaign” research does not let them understand how well the 21st-century revolutions have already been studied empirically. While revolutions and maximalist campaigns are not conceptually identical, we show that the two traditions study substantially overlapping sets of contentious episodes and arrive at comparable empirical results. For this reason, scholars in each camp should engage more directly with the other camp literature and, where appropriate, use datasets on both revolutions and maximalist campaigns for validation and robustness checks.
This article reviews the literature on deliberative quality, a key concept used in deliberative democracy scholarship to assess how closely actual deliberation approximates normative ideals. It traces the development of deliberative theory from early models through to more inclusive and systemic approaches. The review maps the main empirical tools developed to measure deliberative quality, which differ in their normative assumptions, methodological designs, and levels of analysis. While the proliferation of approaches reflects the richness of the field, it also creates challenges regarding empirical comparability and theoretical clarity. The article concludes with a section highlighting a research agenda calling for conceptual alignment and methodological refinement to support future research on deliberation, especially in contexts where deliberative processes are becoming increasingly institutionalised and often proposed as responses to political polarisation and democratic distrust. We provide a comprehensive and systematic overview for scholars interested in deliberative processes and their normative and empirical evaluation.
This article theorizes the academic journal as a theatrical institution that stages the production, negotiation, and legitimization of knowledge. Through a conceptual analysis informed by Foucault, Butler, and performance theory, it argues that the processes of submission, review, and publication constitute a performative dynamic in which authority and intelligibility are continually rehearsed. Within this dramaturgy, the peer review process functions as a scene of epistemic contestation: reviewers act as opposing directors shaping the author’s performance of legitimacy, while the editor mediates between conflicting interpretations. The author, compelled to navigate these demands, becomes both actor and subject, performing compliance within an institution that both disciplines and displays intellectual labor. Drawing on critical theories of power, performativity, and subject formation, the article reimagines the journal not as a neutral repository of scholarship but as a stage upon which knowledge itself is enacted—where, as in theater, the struggle for publication mirrors the broader politics of recognition and intelligibility within the academy. By conceptualizing peer review as a theatrical and political performance, the article foregrounds how scholarly legitimacy is acquired through institutional rituals of interpretation, negotiation, and compliance, thereby offering a new conceptual framework through which readers in political studies may understand academic publishing as a site of power rather than merely an evaluative system.
