Demand for and participation in deliberative practices have often been studied in democratic settings where they were available or took place. However, there is limited information about what shapes people's attitudes towards deliberative practices in countries that struggle with representative democracy and where deliberation is not available. This article addresses these gaps in the literature and aims to explain why people in the Republic of Moldova support deliberative practices and would engage with them should they happen in their country. We draw on individual data from a survey conducted in November 2024 on a national representative sample. We isolate baseline orientations towards deliberation and find that most Moldovans have positive views about deliberation, but many support deliberation strongly without striving to engage. Support for deliberation is influenced by area of residence and gender, while the willingness to engage is the result of people's attitudes towards politics and decision-making.

In recent decades, researchers have approached the topic of new parties, often explaining how they emerge, adapt to political systems, and gain supporters. However, little research has looked at how discourses differ between new and old parties. The present paper aims to cover this gap by looking at parties’ manifestos and their discourses in relation to the European Union to establish whether there are differences in their views. The study includes the manifestos of political parties that have received over 1% of votes in the latest national elections in 12 EU countries. The qualitative content analysis focuses on 101 electoral manifestos that were published between 2019 and 2024. This paper contributes to the literature that focuses on new political parties.

There is extensive research on legislation co-sponsorship, but information on why opposition-initiated legislation is adopted is scarce. This article fills this gap by identifying the reasons behind legislation adoption in Romania in the 2020-2024 parliament as the least likely case where opposition could push laws through. Our thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with MPs shows the importance of personal networks, parliamentary experience, budget impact, and public pressure. In some instances, especially with salient issues, proposals' innovation and specificity also boosted their adoption. Somewhat counterintuitively, constituency interests, ideological proximity, and MP expertise did not matter.

State surveillance has been extensively investigated in various contexts in relation to the use of technology, external threats and people's attitudes and characteristics. However, the relationship between political attitudes and the public's acceptance of state surveillance has been underexplored. Our article addresses this gap in the literature and aims to identify the effects of citizens' political preferences regarding the acceptance of state surveillance in Hungary. We use individual-level data from a survey conducted in October 2022 on a national-level representative sample. We find that populist attitudes have no effect on the acceptance of surveillance, but also that support for a right-wing government, age and gender have strong explanatory power.

Very few political science graduates go into politics. While choosing a different career track may be a matter of personal preference or context, the extent to which political science prepares students for political careers is questionable. This article seeks to explore that question by analysing how political science prepares students for activities within political parties. It draws upon semi-structured interviews conducted with political science students or recent graduates who are party members in Romania, Spain, and the United Kingdom. We find that political science courses have a positive impact on students' activity as party members through providing them with a comprehensive theoretical basis and a holistic knowledge approach. However, access to the practical aspects of politics is limited in university courses, leaving students and graduates feeling unprepared for political careers. These observations are valid across the board, with few specific country-specific nuances.

Most referendums for EU membership organised in countries that are candidates for accession are straightforward. The 2024 referendum in the Republic of Moldova is an exception because it took place in a climate of geopolitical instability, security concerns and potential external interference. This article identifies the reasons behind the pro-EU vote in the referendum using data from a survey on a national representative sample. The results show a spillover of satisfaction with democracy in the country into greater support for the EU, the importance of democratic values and egalitarian attitudes, which are strengthened by political interest, information and education.

Participatory budgeting (PB) was first implemented in Porto Alegre (Brazil) in 1989 as a measure to reduce poverty and decrease child mortality. Since then, it has spread all over the world. It empowers citizens in political action, increases their awareness of the social and political shortcomings of their communities, and allows them to decide how a part of the local budget should be spent. Despite these benefits, people generally rarely engage with PB when it is offered. With the exception of a few studies (Gherghina, Tap, and Traistaru 2023), we do not yet know what makes individuals abstain from participating in this process.

The digitalization of political parties has often been approached from the perspective of political parties. Previous studies discuss the potential impact of technology on empowerment, but the users' attitudes to this are largely unknown. To address this gap in the literature, our article analyses how party members view the empowerment potential of digital tools in their party. We use data from semi-structured interviews conducted in November and December 2023 with members of four Italian political parties: Brothers of Italy, Democratic Party, Five Star Movement, and Forza Italia. Employing an inductive approach, the coding process was data-driven, and identified four forms of empowerment. The analysis revealed significant, and in some cases counter-intuitive, similarities and differences between the parties examined.

People’s attitudes towards vote buying have often been studied through the lenses of its acceptability as a norm in society or the drivers behind the decision to accept money if offered. However, we know little about the financial value that voters attach to their vote. To fill this gap in the literature, this research note analyzes what makes people accept different sums of money in exchange for their votes. It uses a survey conducted in Romania after the 2020 legislative elections and shows that most respondents reject any sum of money. Among those willing to accept money, the voters who have limited information, who rarely participate politically and those who are young are inclined to ask higher sums for their vote. Partisanship has mild effects, but poverty and trust in parties do not make a difference.

Electoral volatility and clientelism were traditionally analysed through the lenses of clientelistic behaviour by political actors. However, we know very little about the importance of volatility for the formation of attitudes towards clientelism within the electorate. This article addresses that gap by analysing the extent to which volatile voters are more likely to accept electoral clientelism as a political practice. We bring evidence from Romania, which is a crucial case due to its extensive use of clientelism in elections over time and high electoral volatility. The analysis uses individual-level data from a survey conducted on a national representative sample of 4316 respondents in 2021. Contrary to the theoretical expectations, the findings illustrate that loyal voters accept clientelism easier, which holds when controlling for variables such as targeting awareness, political interest, income, or education. These results have important implications for the study of elections and voting behaviour.

The article reveals how Hungarian parties expand their members' participatory repertoires in intra-party democracy with the help of information and communication technology. By answering the question of how Hungarian parties use digital tools for their internal procedures the article adds to the literature on parties' use of technology. To make visible the promises and boundaries of online political participation in a post-communist country the article relies on 26 semi-structured interviews with Hungarian politicians from 10 parties conducted in 2020. The findings indicate that top-down communication dominates Hungarian parties' practices, and social media is highly popular and is used for both external and internal reasons.

The British decision to leave the European Union after the 2016 referendum raises questions about who could be next. This article analyzes why citizens in East European Member States would vote to leave the European Union in the event of further referendums. It proposes an analytical framework that seeks to explain this strong form of Euroscepticism through four variables that are rarely linked to the European Union: political apathy and alienation, dissatisfaction with domestic democracy and economy, conservative values, and social isolation. We use individual-level data from the 2018 wave of the European Social Survey to show that citizens’ conservative attitudes and social isolation are robust determinants of a potential European Union exit vote in Eastern Europe. We also identify several country-specific causes, which means that the European Union faces particular challenges across political settings.

"Authoritarian police in democracy: contested security in Latin America." Democratization, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print), pp. 1–2

Politicians are expressing increasing support for deliberative practices around the world. However, knowledge about their actions beyond expressing support is scarce. To address this gap in the literature, this article aims to explain why politicians do not pick up the results arising from deliberative practices and integrate them into their policies. Our analysis focuses on the 2019 deliberation in Iceland as the most likely case in which we would expect such a process to occur. We use original data from 25 semi-structured interviews conducted in 2021 with Icelandic MPs elected at the national level, which also cover all the party leaders of the eight parliamentary parties in the 2017–2021 term in office. The reflexive thematic analysis finds that, irrespective of their ideological affiliation, politicians are critical of deliberative practices both in procedural and substantive terms. They display a strong belief that political representation achieved through elections must be the rule of the democratic game. As such, deliberation is considered redundant since citizens already have many ways to participate in representative democracy.

Country presidents and their political parties have strong connections along partisan lines. However, it remains unclear how this relationship unfolds when country presidents have to be non-partisans and formal ties are not permitted. This article seeks to address this gap in the literature and analyzes how country presidents use informal powers to maintain an influence in the life of their (former) political parties. We use Romania as the most likely case where we would expect such powers to occur and matter, because the country’s constitution bans the country’s president from being a party member once they are elected to public office. We compare the behaviour of the two Romanian country presidents who have each served two complete consecutive terms in office in the post-communist period. Our analysis covers the 2004–2022 period and focuses on the following four dimensions: electing successors, prime ministerial appointments, inclusion in coalition agreements and parties’ electoral performance.

Citizens with political knowledge can contribute to the quality of democracy in their country. Previous research has established the existence of differences between the actual (objective) and perceived (subjective) level of political knowledge, but the factors driving citizens' subjective political knowledge in a specific setting in which they can take direct decisions remain unclear. To explain what determines subjective knowledge about referendum topics among voters, the present analysis focuses on seven referendums held in Eastern Europe between 2015 and 2019 in Bulgaria, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania (twice), and Slovakia. We use individual-level data from surveys conducted in the aftermath of each referendum with a total number of 1825 actual voters. The results indicate that more politically engaged citizens, those who trust parties and are satisfied with democracy, and those who are critical towards the government consider themselves more informed about the referendum topics.

Research in politics uses fictitious politicians to explain different processes. In experimental designs, the participants know that these politicians do not exist. However, we know little about what happens when people are not aware about this, and it remains unclear if they distinguish between fictitious and real politicians. Our article aims to explain what makes citizens identify a fictitious party leader. We use individual-level data from a survey conducted in Romania on a probability representative sample. Our analysis tests the extent to which characteristics associated to two opposing groups in society influence the identification of a fictitious party leader. The empirical evidence bears important implications for the literature on political sophistication and for the research emphasizing social desirability bias.

One of the most visible effects of the COVID-19 pandemic is on voter turnout. Earlier research concludes that the pandemic depresses turnout by looking at statistical patterns and testing the explanatory power of pandemic casualties against alternative causes. Based on the existing results, we only assume that the pandemic was related to depressing turnout but we do not know if that happened. In this sense, there is limited attention paid to people’s perspectives. This article addresses this gap in the literature and analyzes the importance of the pandemic for absenteeism through the eyes of (non)voters. It focuses on Romania, a country with a particularly low turnout in the 2020 national elections compared to the previous elections. The analysis uses 21 semi-structured interviews conducted with persons with a different sociodemographic profile who voted in 2016 but did not vote in 2020. We use inductive thematic analysis to identify the reasons behind their absenteeism. The main findings reveal that the main reasons for absenteeism are rooted in voters’ long-term attitudes toward the political system and elections. The COVID-19 pandemic did not appear to influence people’s absenteeism, but was sometimes used mainly as a pretext to stay at home.

The increasing use of participatory budgeting (PB) around the world has led to analyses covering people's attitudes towards the process, its empowering characteristics, and its transformational potential. However, we know very little about how people belonging to ethnic minorities position themselves towards PB. This article aims to address this gap and identify what factors determine the engagement of individuals belonging to ethnic minorities with PB. This study focuses on the multi-ethnic city of Cluj-Napoca and uses 20 semi-structured interviews conducted with ethnic Hungarians. The results indicate that engagement is driven by the possibility of a strong voice in the community, the opportunity to communicate with the public administration about their priorities, and the stimulation of social cohesion and civic spirit. Non-engagement is triggered by the limited details provided about PB, its online-only format, and several personal characteristics.