ABSTRACT Social media platforms have become key spaces where political discourse unfolds and public engagement takes shape. Yet users bring different emotional styles and expressive habits into these environments, producing visible variation in how political conversations evolve online. This study analyses 50,000 tweets from Indian political discussions on X (formerly Twitter) to examine how emotional expression, engagement behaviours and influence patterns differ across users. Applying sentiment analysis (TextBlob, validated against a transformer‐based BERT model), Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) for topic modelling, Poisson generalized linear models for engagement analysis and mention‐based network mapping, the study addresses three research questions: how sentiment relates to engagement behaviour, which political topics dominate discourse and how they are framed emotionally, and how influence is distributed among users. The findings show that tweets with a more positive emotional tone receive higher levels of affective endorsement through likes. More specifically, positively framed tweets are expected to receive approximately 23% more likes than neutral tweets, whereas negatively framed tweets receive fewer likes, suggesting that affective validation and content amplification operate through distinct behavioural pathways. Election‐related content displays markedly stronger emotional polarization, suggesting that politically contentious themes evoke sharper affective responses. The network analysis further indicates that agenda‐setting influence is concentrated among a small group of elite actors, around whom much of the expressive and behavioural activity clusters. By integrating sentiment orientation, topic salience and network centrality into a unified analytical framework and tracing these differences at scale, the study contributes to work on emotional contagion, digital polarization and political communication by providing measurable digital indicators of the emotional climate of political discourse in digitally networked public spheres.
ABSTRACT Conflict studies disproportionately focus on internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees, largely side‐lining host community and family dynamics in neglected conflict contexts. We use the sustainable livelihoods capital portfolios to compare changes among IDPs and host families (HFs) of the neglected Anglophone conflict in Cameroon. Analysing pseudo‐panel data generated through mixed methods approach for the dormant, active and deescalating conflict phases show significant drops in financial (income), physical (access to land), natural (access to drinking water) and social capitals (membership in networks) for both IDPs and HFs across study periods. The only exception was human capital (school attendance). On the basis of these results, we conclude that humanitarian and other relief actions should target both IDPs and HFs. Our study adds to the limited literature on the effects of neglected conflicts on IDPs and HFs.
ABSTRACT This article looks at what Ukrainian migrants living in Poland plan to do once the war ends. It focuses on differences by age and migration type, highlighting the implications of these findings for public policy. The results show clear contrasts between forced and voluntary migrants, and these differences are interpreted through two distinct theoretical frameworks: the New Economics of Labour Migration for voluntary migrants and the aspirations–capabilities framework for forced migrants. This article discusses selected findings from a survey conducted between May and July 2025 among 428 adult Ukrainian citizens living in Poland. Forced migrants are more likely to think about returning to Ukraine and about taking part in post‐war reconstruction. Voluntary migrants, who moved to Poland before the war, more often plan to stay abroad. They are also less willing to engage in rebuilding Ukraine. Age matters even more. Young people stand out as the group least interested in returning and least willing to participate in reconstruction. A large share of them cannot yet say what they will do. Older respondents are more open to returning and more ready to contribute actively to rebuilding the country. These findings send a clear message to policymakers. Ukraine risks losing a significant portion of its future workforce, particularly young people who are emigrating abroad. If Ukraine wants them back, the return cannot be left to chance. It will require real security, good jobs, access to housing and trust in public institutions. The findings are situated within the broader demographic context of Ukraine's post‐war recovery, where the return decisions of refugees—particularly younger cohorts—carry significant implications for the country's future workforce and reconstruction capacity.
ABSTRACT This article documents different dimensions of militarisation observed in Mexico since the start of the war on drugs. It argues that militarisation is a multidirectional phenomenon that is characterised by rationales that justify the use of illegal means to address complex issues, promising expediency and efficiency but rarely delivering on it. In this case, it provides evidence about tactical, economic and organisational dimensions. Its main contribution is to present an analytical review of these patterns, whereby faulty governance has led to profound institutional transformation caused by the crosstalk between the military and state institutions. It concludes by suggesting that further research is required on the organisational dimension to elucidate how militarisation can be a powerful transformative force in the institutions of the state beyond the tactical application of coercive force.
ABSTRACT Conventional wisdom suggests that higher education (HE) and national prosperity (or wealth) contribute to improved life satisfaction. Is this also true for first‐generation immigrants? Using multilevel models on 16,368 individuals across 35 European countries from the European Social Survey, the results demonstrate that, although immigrants generally become more satisfied with their lives as country‐level prosperity increases, highly educated immigrants enjoy a greater life‐satisfaction advantage in less prosperous countries than their less‐educated counterparts; however, this advantage is partly reversed in highly prosperous countries. The present study examined two mechanisms for this observation: perceived discrimination and occupational downgrading. Results reveal that occupational downgrading, rather than discrimination, constitutes the primary pathway, accounting for approximately one‐quarter of the negative effect observed among highly educated immigrants in high‐prosperity contexts. The psychological harm of working below one's qualification level intensifies with country prosperity, suggesting that blocked mobility is particularly damaging where meritocratic advancement is expected. The substantial positive direct effect of HE suggests that when labour market integration is successful, education provides considerable benefits for life satisfaction. However, institutional barriers to credential recognition in more prosperous host countries prevent many highly educated immigrants from accessing appropriate positions, partially offsetting the advantages of high prosperity. These findings have significant policy implications for reforming credential recognition in migration programmes in developed countries.
