How does the age composition of democratic institutions shape public evaluations of their legitimacy? While most institutions are dominated by older politicians, we argue that incorporating younger representatives can enhance perceptions of legitimacy. To test this claim, we conduct a survey experiment in the United States that varies the age composition of a bipartisan state legislative committee and its decisions. We find that including younger members increases perceptions of procedural fairness and institutional trust, and improves evaluations of decisions on lower-salience policies. These effects are stronger among young people and Democrats. Evidence on mechanisms suggests these legitimacy gains reflect beliefs that younger politicians are more attuned to young people’s experiences and concerns. Observational evidence from US state legislatures and a replication experiment in the United Kingdom yield consistent patterns, suggesting that these findings extend beyond the original experimental context. This suggests that expanding youth representation can meaningfully strengthen democratic legitimacy.
Abstract Scientists and policy makers are increasingly exploring solar geoengineering as a tool for combatting anthropogenic climate change. Yet these technologies have drawn intense ethical criticism. One of the most influential critiques – the ‘moral hazard’ objection – holds that pursuing solar geoengineering risks undercutting mitigation efforts; and that, as a result, governments should halt the development of solar geoengineering. This paper argues that the moral hazard objection faces a dilemma: either the proposed solution to the moral hazard effect (that is, stifling geoengineering) is unnecessary, or it expresses a morally troubling form of disrespect. Articulating this dilemma serves three purposes. It shows, first, that the moral hazard objection is substantially more difficult to vindicate than it initially appears. Second, it clarifies what would need to be shown, empirically, to overcome this ethical hurdle. Finally, and crucially, it sheds light, more broadly, on what it means to respect people’s agency when designing and implementing public policies.
Theories of democratic diffusion predict that exposure to liberal democracies fosters support for political liberalism, while recent studies on Chinese overseas students suggest studying abroad generates backlash against liberal values. Using a unique four-year longitudinal dataset of nearly 1,000 Chinese college students in China and the United States, we examine how studying abroad shapes students’ ideology, attitudes, and identity. Our findings challenge both perspectives. Students who study in the United States are already more politically liberal, market-oriented, and cosmopolitan, and less nationalistic than their peers upon departure, underscoring the importance of selection. Ideological preferences remain remarkably stable throughout college, regardless of location. However, support for China’s political system and affective identification with Chinese national identity declines among students in both countries from 2022 to 2023, with a greater decline among students in the United States. These results show that selection, home-country shocks, and host-country context jointly shape overseas students’ political attitudes.
National identity is usually treated as a stable driver of political behaviour, yet we know little about whether it responds to major political events. We examine how two pivotal electoral events - the 2014 Scottish Independence Referendum and the 2016 EU Referendum - were associated with changes in citizens' sense of national belonging. Using the 2014-2025 British Election Study Internet Panel, we show that both referendums precipitated significant shifts in national identification, primarily among those on the losing side. Post-referendum changes in Scotland proved temporary, but among Remain voters British identification fell substantially and remained depressed through 2025, with the gap between winners and losers widening over time. These findings suggest national identity is more event-sensitive than commonly assumed, and that divisive referendums may leave durable marks on how citizens in multinational states relate to the state by eroding shared national sentiment.
Obtaining portfolios is one of the most important pay-offs that parties receive from getting into office. Accordingly, we know a lot about how portfolios are distributed between coalition partners, but surprisingly little about how voters react to these distributional outcomes. We address this research gap both theoretically and empirically. Theoretically, we argue that voters use cues from the quantitative and qualitative portfolio distributions to evaluate coalition partners’ competence in negotiations, which in turn shapes party support. Empirically, we use original experimental and panel survey data from the 2022 Danish general election. We find that voters infer negotiation competence from the number, power, and party-specific salience of the portfolios a party obtains. We also demonstrate that many voters paid attention to the real-world negotiation outcome and withdrew their support for the parties they perceived handled the negotiations less competently.
