We show that regional heterogeneity of underlying fundamentals (e.g. economic history, geography, social capital) can lead to extreme voting in federations. When the outcome of federal policies – such as transfer schemes, market regulation or migration laws – depends on these fundamentals,...

Does the level of party system institutionalization influence high-level incumbents' electoral support within subnational authoritarianism? Is it possible to ensure incumbent electoral success only with manipulative electoral practices? To what extent does this and other factors contribute to...

This paper aims at contributing to a better understanding of the conditions of self-enforcing democracy by analyzing the recent wave of autocratic transitions. Based on a game-theoretic framework, we work out the conditions under which governments may induce the diverse public authorities to...

We show that the Brazilian trade liberalization in the early 1990s led to a permanent relative decline in the vote share of left-wing presidential candidates in the regions more affected by the tariff cuts. This happened even though the shock, implemented by a right-wing party, induced a...

We show that the Brazilian trade liberalization in the early 1990s led to a permanent relative decline in the vote share of left-wing presidential candidates in the regions more affected by the tariff cuts. This happened even though the shock, implemented by a right-wing party, induced a...

We analyze close elections between male and female mayoral candidates in Brazilian municipalities to provide novel evidence on the role of women as policymakers. Using an objective measure of corruption based on random government audits, we find that female mayors are less likely to engage in...

As right-wing populist politicians have found success across a wide range of countries in recent years, scholars have developed competing theories aimed at explaining the (strong) performance of these populists. We test the leading, competing frameworks, one focused on economic explanations and...