Up to now there was a general conviction that increasing unemployment and inflation have a negative impact on the government's popularity. This was true for Germany as well, but it does not seem to hold any longer. This paper first reviews the results of earlier periods before presenting new...

In economics and other social sciences, complex processes are often represented by numerical models of reality which more or less well reflect behavioral relationships and interactions. Such attempts are the subject of a lecture course "Mathematical Theory of Democracy" by the author at the...

When voters fear that politicians may have a right-wing bias or that they may be influenced or corrupted by the rich elite, signals of true left-wing conviction are valuable. As a consequence, even a moderate politician seeking reelection chooses ‘populist’ policies – i.e., policies to the...