Weiss, Julia
Published in
Acta Politica
The economic crisis of 2008 resulted in rising levels of unemployment, which were accompanied by protests in many countries. This led to a scientific debate on the influence of grievances on political participation. Previous studies have shown that individual affectedness leads to ‘exiting’, whereas in times of crisis grievances lead to increased p...
Waeterloos, Cato Walrave, Michel Ponnet, Koen
Published in
Acta Politica
Feelings of dissatisfaction with the political status quo are believed to mobilize citizens into non-institutional political action, such as protest. Still, little is known about whether and how political participation through social media provide an alternative voicing route for discontented citizens. Guided by grievance theory, this article asses...
Martin, Nick
Published in
Acta Politica
What explains why parties with shared origins, ideology, and government experience take divergent paths in connecting to civil society? I seek to answer this question with a comparative case study of two socialist parties in Belgium—the Parti Socialiste (PS) and the Socialistische Partij Anders (SP.a). I show that far-reaching change in the form of...
van der Vlist, Denny
Published in
Acta Politica
Not much is known about Members of Parliament (MPs) after they leave parliament. This study addresses this empirical gap by analysing post-parliamentary employment in The Netherlands between 1967 and 2017. With 970 post-parliamentary careers included, it ranks among the most extensive studies into post-parliamentary career attractiveness up to date...
van Elsas, Erika Fiselier, Toine
Published in
Acta Politica
How does elite polarization impact citizens’ political support? While elite polarization generally has a negative connotation, we argue that it is crucial to distinguish its potential manifestations. The present study analyzes the impact of perceived elite polarization on political support by disentangling the effects of elite incivility from those...
Pittoors, Gilles Gheyle, Niels
Published in
Acta Politica
At the turn of the century, both academics and practitioners anticipated the Europeanization of national politics and political parties. One major expectation was that parties would adapt their organisation and behaviour to the existence of the EU and the functioning of its institutions. However, the early 2000s poured cold water on those expectati...
van der Meer, Tom Damstra, Alyt
Published in
Acta Politica
Associative issue ownership (AIO) has proven its value in describing issue competition and explaining voting behavior. Yet, it is unclear whether and to what extent AIO also differentiates parties and influences vote choice in highly fragmented, multiparty systems. In such a context, parties must differentiate from many electoral competitors, which...
Gherghina, Sergiu Tap, Paul Soare, Sorina
Published in
Acta Politica
Participatory budgeting gains momentum around the world, and increasing evidence provides mixed results about its effects. Under these circumstances, it is unclear if citizens consider it a source of empowerment and an avenue for effective decision-making in the life of their local community. We know very little about how participants in participat...
Vermeer, Susan Van Remoortere, Annelien Vliegenthart, Rens
Published in
Acta Politica
Previous research has demonstrated that both visibility of parties, party leaders, candidates, and topics, and the sentiment of this coverage can affect people’s decision in the ballot box. Most of this research was, however, done in the period before social media gained importance which has drastically changed the media consumption of citizens. Th...
Nai, Alessandro Young, Elizabeth L. Bos, Linda
Published in
Acta Politica
We test the somewhat counter-intuitive expectation that support for populist radical right (PRR) parties at the national level is associated with public support for ethno-traditional cues—a frequent feature in PRR imagery and nativist discourse— abroad . We do so by leveraging a large-scale comparative dataset that covers voting patterns during the...
