Immigration has become a hot topic in West European politics. The factors responsible for the intensification of political conflict on this issue are a matter of considerable controversy. This holds in particular for the role of socio-economic factors and of radical right populist parties. This...

Populist party communication is a growing research area. However, measuring the concept empirically is challenging due to the context sensitivity of such rhetoric. In this paper, we present an approach that relies on a computer-assisted methods of text analysis to study populist communication on...

Immigration has become a hot topic in West European politics. The factors responsible for the intensification of political conflict on this issue are a matter of considerable controversy. This holds in particular for the role of socio-economic factors and of radical right populist parties. This...

Do those who feel left behind express more distrust of politics? Or does political trust serve as a palliative as the disadvantaged become more trusting? We argue that the relationship between social status and political trust depends on the context of economic inequality. Whereas in contexts of...

Being at the center of social capital, voluntary associations are generally thought to play a crucial role for the functioning of civil society and democracy. Several studies, however, cast doubt on the contention that associations are the foundation of generalized trust. Our study goes beyond...

This paper presents the first investigation of whether and how party identification is influenced by direct democratic institutions. The concept of party identification is of central interest to political science. Despite declining partisan attachment and increasing dealignment among voters,...

This paper analyzes the moderating effect of direct democracy on the relationship of socioeconomic status and political participation. A skeptical position holds that direct democracy increases social bias in the electorate as issues are too complex and demanding. Participatory democrats in...

This paper starts from the premise that the politicization of Europe is indicative of a new structuring conflict that involves a set of processes which put the national political community under strain. This structuring conflict has been emerging long before the Euro and refugee crises. However,...

This article links the consequences of the Great Recession on protest and electoral politics. It innovates by combining the literature on economic voting with social movement research and by presenting the first integrated, large-scale empirical analysis of protest mobilisation and electoral...

The article provides the first large-scale study of protest activities by political parties. The empirical analysis draws on original protest event data for 30 European countries based on semi-automated coding of news agencies. The article innovates by (a) proposing a standardized indicator for...