Politicians often implement popular changes in public policies prior to elections, with the aim of improving their Election Day outcome. This research note evaluates whether such "electioneering" carries over also into politicians' extra-parliamentary activities. Evidence from the UK House of...

Conventional wisdom holds that war casualties depress incumbent popularity. We argue that the strength and even the direction of these effects is inherently context-dependent because the perception of casualties varies over time and space, affected by historical developments. While intuitive,...

Extensive research demonstrates that war casualties depress incumbent popularity. The present study argues that analyses of the political costs of warfare should also account for the financial toll of wars since a) financial costs of wars are substantial, b) these costs are publicly observed and...

Redistribution is typically viewed to be a task of central governments. Still, many local governments do have some discretion in redistribution policy. The main theoretical argument is that redistribution may be a local public good. Using data on Flemish municipalities, we present an empirical...