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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

📱 What do Europe's parties talk about on social media? @malojan.bsky.social & @luissattelmayer.bsky.social introduce PartySOME II, a dataset of party issue agendas built from over 4.6m posts by 219 parties in 18 European countries on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Description of the article "PartySOME II: a dataset on parties’ issue agendas on social media" by Malo Jan and Luis Sattelmayer, published online first in West European Politics. The first page shows the title, authors and abstract, with the description of the dataset and its validation and illustrative finding highlighted.

Figure 1. Bar charts of the five policy issues each party family posts about most on social media. Far-right parties give most attention to immigration and to law and crime, Greens focus heavily on the environment, and social democratic and radical left parties emphasise macroeconomics, civil rights and labour.

Figure 3. Line charts of the average share of party posts on health, on macroeconomics and without policy content, in the two years before and after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in February 2020. Attention to health rises markedly when the pandemic begins, while the share of posts without policy content declines sharply.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

🧭 Why are economically left, culturally conservative parties so common in Eastern Europe? Using expert and voter surveys, Jan Rovny shows they come from very different party families yet offer similar policies — ethnic and religious divides decide who fills that space. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Description of the article "National and socialist: political representation in the left-authoritarian quadrant in Eastern Europe" by Jan Rovny, published online first in West European Politics. The first page shows the title, author and abstract, with the paradox the article addresses and its main argument highlighted.

Figure 1. Two scatter plots of party placements on an economic left-right axis and a conservative-liberal axis, for Eastern and Western Europe, with circle size showing vote share. The left-authoritarian quadrant, marked in red, holds many parties in the East, several of them large, and is almost empty in the West.

Figure 6. Predicted probability of voting for a left-authoritarian party by support for redistribution, immigration and gay rights and by ethnicity, before and after 2015, from European Social Survey data. Before 2015 support for redistribution strongly predicts such a vote and immigration views matter little; after 2015 the redistribution effect disappears and opposition to immigration becomes a strong predictor, while gay rights and ethnicity show consistent effects in both periods.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

🇪🇺 What drives the European Commission's growing power? Fabio Franchino, @martami.bsky.social & @giovannipagano.bsky.social study 9000+ EU laws: Parliament's involvement is the strongest driver, more so when it's ideologically closer to the Commission than the Council is. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Description of the article "A supranational alliance: the empowerment of the European Commission (1958–2019)" by Fabio Franchino, Marta Migliorati and Giovanni Pagano, published online first in West European Politics. The first page shows the title, authors and abstract, with the main argument and findings highlighted.

Figure 1. Line chart of the Commission's mean executive discretion per year and the number of laws adopted, from 1958 to 2019. Apart from volatility in the early years, discretion follows a consistent upward trend, while the number of laws declines after the 1980s.

Figure 2. Plot of the average marginal effects of the explanatory factors on the Commission's executive discretion. Parliamentary involvement has the largest positive effect; Council majority voting, an ideologically allied Parliament, non-compliance and Council divisiveness also raise discretion, while agency drift between Council and Commission lowers it.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

🏛️ Does a government set the same agenda in private as in public? Christoffer Green-Pedersen, Peter Bjerre Mortensen and Henrik Seeberg analyse secret Danish cabinet committee agendas: they differ markedly from the public agenda and influence it, not vice versa. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Description of the article "Two sides of governments: comparing inside and outside executive agendas in Denmark" by Christoffer Green-Pedersen, Peter Bjerre Mortensen and Henrik Bech Seeberg, published online first in West European Politics. The abstract page has passages highlighted on the two government agendas and how they differ.

Figure 1. Two dot-and-whisker plots covering 21 issue categories. The left panel ranks the average attention each issue receives on the inside agenda, with government operations at the top and culture at the bottom. The right panel shows the difference between inside and outside attention: crime and civil rights get relatively more inside attention, while foreign affairs, the economy and health get less.

Table 3. Regression table predicting attention to issues on the outside agenda and the inside agenda. Each agenda is strongly predicted by its own previous level. The inside agenda has a positive but modest link to the later outside agenda, while the outside agenda has a much weaker link to the inside agenda. Media attention predicts the inside agenda but not the outside agenda.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

🌊 Does a flood make people less keen on EU disaster aid? Alessandro Pellegata and @annreinl.bsky.social use a 15-country survey and a Polish natural experiment and find that satisfaction with the EU's COVID response predicts more support — but post-flood, support falls. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Description of the article "Here comes the flood: crisis learning and public support for EU disaster solidarity" by Alessandro Pellegata and Ann-Kathrin Reinl, published online first in West European Politics. The first page shows the title, authors and abstract, with the research question and main findings highlighted.

Figure 2. Coefficient plot of the change in the predicted probability of supporting EU disaster solidarity, for satisfaction with the EU's handling of the Euro Area, refugee and COVID-19 crises and for control variables, in a base model (left panel) and a full model (right panel). Satisfaction with the COVID-19 response is positively associated with support, satisfaction with the refugee response slightly negatively, and satisfaction with the Euro Area response is close to zero.

Figure 3. Coefficient plot of the change in the predicted probability of supporting EU disaster solidarity among Polish respondents. Respondents interviewed after the floods are less likely to support it than those interviewed before, while the three crisis-satisfaction measures show no clear association once the flood is accounted for.

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Laura Jacobs @lcjacobs89.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

📄 New publication in WEP w/ @jokematthieu.bsky.social & Silvia Erzeel! Why do fewer women than men support PRRPs? Findings: 🔹Having a VB supporter in one's personal network is strongly associated with supporting VB 🔹This relation is stronger among women <-> men 📖 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

👥 Can network effects explain why fewer women than men support the radical right? @jokematthieu.bsky.social, @lcjacobs89.bsky.social & Silvia Erzeel find that having a radical right supporter in one's network is strongly linked to support; significantly more so for women. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Description of the article "Gendered support for the radical right: the role of personal network cues" by Joke Matthieu, Laura Jacobs and Silvia Erzeel, published online first in West European Politics.

Figure 2. Nine-panel plot of the same predicted outcomes, split by gender. With a Vlaams Belang voter in the network, women's propensity to vote for the party rises more steeply than men's and their support for the cordon sanitaire falls more steeply; for media exposure and local vote share the male and female lines are much closer together.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

🇪🇺 Can citizen participation change EU policy? Sebastiaan Princen builds a theoretical framework and argues that impact depends on the wider policy fight, so most processes likely bring incremental change at best. Major change needs restrictive conditions. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Description of the article "Citizen participation in the European Union: can it make a difference?" by Sebastiaan Princen, published online first in West European Politics. The abstract page with the framing of the theoretical framework and the six pathways to policy impact highlighted.

Table 2. Table listing six pathways to policy impact of citizen participation processes, from recalibrating existing policies to institutionalising political forces, with the type of policy change, the background condition and the forms of participation each is most likely for.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

🏳️‍🌈 When does rejecting homosexuality predict radical-right support? Álvaro Calvo-Rodríguez studies 21 European countries: the link grows where gender issues polarise and radical-right parties lean on religious tradition — and weakens when they stress Islam instead. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Description of the article "When does rejection of homosexuality matter? Gendered opportunity structures and radical-right support" by Álvaro Calvo-Rodríguez, published online first in West European Politics.

Figure 3. Small-multiple line charts for the same 16 countries, comparing the same rejection-of-homosexuality link (solid line) with within-country change in radical-right parties' anti-Islam salience (dashed line). In many countries, including Spain, Sweden and Switzerland, rising anti-Islam salience coincides with a flatter or weaker link.

Figure 4. Three-panel line chart of the predicted probability of feeling close to a radical-right party across levels of rejection of homosexuality, for high versus low anti-Islam salience, at low, mean and high gender polarisation. Where gender polarisation is low, high anti-Islam salience flattens or even reverses the link; where it is high, rejection of homosexuality still goes with greater radical-right closeness under high anti-Islam salience.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

🧩 Do voters dislike parties that mix left and right positions? In ten countries, @rdassonneville.bsky.social, Patrick Fournier & @zeynsom.bsky.social find voters know less about such parties and like them less, in part because of the inconsistency itself. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Description of the article "Voters' perceptions of ideologically inconsistent parties" by Ruth Dassonneville, Patrick Fournier and Zeynep Somer-Topcu, published online first in West European Politics.

Figure 2. Line chart of predicted party like/dislike ratings by how ideologically inconsistent a respondent perceives a party to be, with a histogram of observations underneath. Ratings fall markedly as perceived inconsistency rises.

Figure 3. Line chart of the effect of expert-rated ideological inconsistency on party like/dislike ratings, by how accurately a respondent perceives the party's positions, with a histogram of observations underneath. The effect is negative for respondents who place parties accurately, shrinks towards zero as their perceptions grow less accurate, and turns positive when they are far off.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

⏳ Why are voters out of step with parties on immigration and redistribution? Hironao Yoda and Serika Atsumi study 16 Western European countries: newer cohorts link the two issues as parties do — older ones don't, so the gap should narrow with generational turnover. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Description of the article "Time dilation: the temporal structure of elite–voter incongruence on redistribution and immigration" by Hironao Yoda and Serika Atsumi, published online first in West European Politics.

Figure 1. Two scatter plots on redistribution (x-axis) and immigration (y-axis) for 14 Western European countries. Panel (a) shows party positions from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, which line up along a clear diagonal; panel (b) shows voter positions from the European Social Survey, which spread across all four quadrants with essentially no relationship between the two issues.

Figure 2. Dot-and-interval plot of how strongly immigration attitudes relate to redistribution attitudes in each of seven cohorts, from the interwar generation to the newest "crisis" generation. For cohorts up to the 90s generation the link is small and often indistinguishable from zero; it turns clearly positive for the 00s generation and is strongest for the crisis generation.

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Ruth Dassonneville @rdassonneville.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

‼️ A new paper with Patrick Fournier and @zeynsom.bsky.social is now out in @wepsocial.bsky.social! We examine citizens’ perceptions of parties that combine left/progressive stances on some issues with right/conservative stances on other issues - which we refer to as ideological inconsistency. 🧵

tandfonline.com

Voters’ perceptions of ideologically inconsistent parties

There is a growing consensus in party politics that new fault lines are emerging, and scholars increasingly characterise competition as multidimensional. In a multidimensional space, parties can ad...

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Reto Mitteregger @indubioproreto.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Interesting new paper in @wepsocial.bsky.social by Yoda&Atsumi showing that "the positive association between pro-redistribution and pro-immigration attitudes is weaker among earlier cohorts." In other words: the number of left-authoritarian voters decreases across generations.

tandfonline.com

Time dilation: the temporal structure of elite–voter incongruence on redistribution and immigration

While immigration and redistribution issues have increasingly converged at the elite level in Western Europe, they remain less correlated among voters, leading to significant elite–voter incongruen...

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

🏢 Does being big give firms political clout? @marcelhanegraaff.bsky.social, @annebind.bsky.social & Juho Vesa survey firms in Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands: size only pays off when firms lobby regularly — and far more in the Netherlands than in corporatist Finland. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Description of the article "The structural political power of firms – and its boundaries" by Marcel Hanegraaff, Anne Binderkrantz and Juho Vesa, published online first in West European Politics.

Figure 1. Line chart of predicted self-reported political influence for low- and high-revenue firms across five levels of lobbying activity, from never to once a week. Among firms that never lobby, revenue makes no difference; from quarterly contact onwards, high-revenue firms pull clearly ahead, and the gap widens as lobbying intensifies.

Figure 2. Line chart of predicted self-reported political influence for low- and high-revenue firms across four levels of insiderness, measured by how often policymakers ask the firm for contact. At the lowest level revenue makes no difference; as policymaker requests become more frequent, the gap in favour of high-revenue firms widens.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

🇲🇹 How does a party win a fourth straight election after 13 years in power? Dominic Fenech tracks Malta's May 2026 election: Labour's margin over the Nationalists halves but stays at 7 points, thanks to a booming economy and an opposition with no real policy alternative. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Description of the article "The 2026 Maltese general election: Labour's staying power" by Dominic Fenech, published online first in West European Politics.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

🎭 Do party members with "dark" traits want "dark" leaders? Paul Webb, @timbale.bsky.social & Stavroula Chrona survey 4,266 UK party members: Reform UK and Conservative members score higher on the "Dark Triad", and those high on these traits prefer leaders who share them. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Description of the article "Personality, populism and party: support for 'dark triad' leaders in the UK" by Paul Webb, Tim Bale and Stavroula Chrona, published online first in West European Politics.

Table 1. Mean scores of Labour, Liberal Democrat, Green, Conservative and Reform UK members on Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy, and on their preference for leaders with those traits. Right-conservative members score higher than left-liberal members on the Dark Triad measures and are clearly keener on leaders with Dark Triad personalities.

Table 2. Regression table of two linear models predicting preference for leaders with Dark Triad traits, by party membership, party vote, demographics, ideology and respondents' own personality. Left-liberal members and voters score lower, and right-conservative members higher, than the Reform voter reference group; respondents' own Machiavellianism, narcissism and psychopathy each predict a stronger preference for such leaders.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

🗳️ Do voters care about the quality of party primaries? In a Spanish experiment, @janaschwenk.bsky.social & @jacobgunderson.bsky.social find that more candidates, higher turnout, more women and easier participation make a primary look more democratic — and more attractive. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Description of the article "Broken promises? Voters prefer intraparty democracy, not window dressing" by Jana Schwenk and Jacob R. Gunderson, published online first in West European Politics.

Figure 1. Coefficient plot of average marginal component effects from a conjoint experiment in Spain, in two panels: whether respondents see a leadership selection process as democratic, and whether they prefer it. More candidates, higher member turnout, at least one female candidate and a larger winning vote share all raise both outcomes, while voting at a party congress rather than online lowers them slightly.

Figure 3. Coefficient plot of average marginal component effects for two further outcomes: whether respondents believe the process makes the party more responsive to voters, and to members. The pattern matches the main results, with more candidates and higher turnout raising perceived responsiveness the most.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

🗺️ Has the nationalisation of Western Europe's party systems been overstated? Arjan Schakel tracks regional elections in 14 countries since 1950: roughly 1 in 5 voters backs a different party regionally than nationally, a gap driven increasingly by regional & new parties. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Description of the article "An overlooked revolution? Party system denationalisation in Western European multilevel election systems" by Arjan H. Schakel, published online first in West European Politics.

Figure 1. Line chart of four party system nationalisation scores for Western Europe, 1950–2020. The three party-based and national-election indicators stay roughly flat, while the indicator comparing regional with national election results declines gradually from the mid-1970s onwards, showing growing divergence between the regional and national vote.

Figure 2. Line chart of average vote-share swings in Western European regional elections, 1950–2020, relative to the preceding national election. Parties in national government lose steadily more from the 1980s onwards, while regional, regionalist and new parties gain steadily more; the gains of national opposition parties stay roughly stable.

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Tim Bale @timbale.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

As Nigel Farage and Reform begin their annual conference in Birmingham, @wepsocial.bsky.social has, with accidental but exquisite timing, today published our article (open access) on "Personality, populism and party: support for ‘dark triad’ leaders in the UK". Do share! Meanwhile, here's a taster:

Firstly, the members of both Britain’s populist radical right party, Reform UK, and its traditionally ‘mainstream’ Conservative Party are significantly more likely to possess the dark triad traits of narcissism, Machiavellianism and psychopathy than the members of the Green Party, Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Secondly, the more British party members themselves possess those traits, the more they prefer leaders who share those traits. Thirdly, and logically, Reform and Conservative Party members are, indeed, more likely to prefer those ‘dark leaders’. It is, then, unsurprising that in recent political history they have gravitated towards leaders such as Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage, who in many ways are the personifications of the kind of leader they say they like − a supremely self-confident and charismatic alpha who mixes charm with a take-no-prisoners/rules-are-for-little people attitude.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

🤔 Is having no trust in politics the same as distrusting it? Matthijs Gillissen, @silkegoubin.bsky.social, Viktor Valgarðsson & @stevenvdwalle.bsky.social survey 12,000 people across 8 European countries: distrust is its own attitude that common trust scales easily miss. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Description of the article "Political trust revisited: theoretical and empirical insights into political distrust and mistrust" by Matthijs Gillissen, Silke Goubin, Viktor Valgarðsson and Steven Van de Walle, published online first in West European Politics.

Figure 3. Conceptual diagram of a two-dimensional view of political trust, with trust and distrust drawn as crossing axes. The four quadrants are labelled blind distrusters, mistrusters, indifferent ambivalence and blind trusters.

Figure 5. Line plot of average responses to five trust, three mistrust and three distrust items for each of four latent classes. The classes are spread widely apart on the trust items but converge on the mistrust items, with one class scoring lowest on trust and highest on distrust and another sitting near the midpoint throughout.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

🇪🇺 Can the EU get reforms with carrots instead of sticks? Igor Guardiancich, @mattiaguidi.bsky.social, Enrico Borghetto and Lucia Quaglia analyse Country-Specific Recommendations: those backed by NextGenerationEU money are implemented more than those issued before/after. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Description of the article "From sanctions to incentives: the impact of NextGenerationEU on the European Semester" by Igor Guardiancich, Mattia Guidi, Enrico Borghetto and Lucia Quaglia, published online first in West European Politics.

Figure 1. Dot-and-whisker plot of the predicted probability that a Country-Specific Recommendation is scored as making at least some progress, across four European Semester phases. Recommendations tied to the Recovery and Resilience Facility sit highest, while post-RRF ones sit lowest and carry by far the widest uncertainty band.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

🌍 Is climate opinion in Britain splitting along party lines? @gidoncohen.bsky.social and Nick Vivyan track British panel data, 2014–2025: party support now explains far more of Britons' climate attitudes, driven above all by Reform UK supporters. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Description of the article "Political polarisation of climate-policy-relevant attitudes: longitudinal evidence from Britain" by Gidon Cohen and Nick Vivyan, published online first in West European Politics.

Three panels plotting partisan polarisation scores for three climate-policy-relevant survey items in Britain between 2014 and 2025. All three trend clearly upward, with shaded 90% credible intervals around the fitted lines.

Estimated trends in the average correlation between climate-policy-relevant attitudes and four other attitude domains between 2014 and 2025, with shaded 90% credible intervals. Correlations with EU and immigration attitudes are the highest and rise fastest; the correlation with economic left-right attitudes is the lowest and rises least.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

🇪🇺 If Brussels eases on enforcement, does EU law still bite? Ellen Mastenbroek, @olivertreib.bsky.social & Esther Versluis map the EU's compliance toolkit beyond infringement procedures. It works, but unevenly across sectors, and only under a credible threat of escalation. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Description of the article "Beyond forbearance? Mapping and assessing the EU's emergent compliance promotion architecture" by Ellen Mastenbroek, Oliver Treib and Esther Versluis, published online first in West European Politics.

Table setting out key EU compliance promotion instruments across a four-row, three-column grid: managerialist, constructivist and rationalist strategies, plus a row combining all three, set against the vertical, horizontal and domestic arenas. Entries include assistance, dialogue tools, peer review, strategic legislative design, the infringement procedure, decentralised enforcement, EU agencies and stakeholder participation.

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Sofia Marini @sofiamarini.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

In this article, recently out for @wepsocial.bsky.social, @henrikseeberg.bsky.social and I present key findings from our coding of party youth wing statutes in 11 countries. Bonus: data available here! 👇🏼 dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtm...

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

🏛️ Do party youth wings get a real say? @sofiamarini.bsky.social and @henrikseeberg.bsky.social hand-code 57 youth wing statutes from 11 countries. Most of them have high levels of internal democracy and autonomy from the senior party but low access to the senior party. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Description of the article "How political parties' youth wings are organised: comparative evidence from 57 statutes in 11 countries" by Sofia Marini and Henrik Bech Seeberg, published online first in West European Politics.

Scatter plot of internal democracy in the parent party (x-axis) against internal democracy in its youth wing (y-axis), one marker per pair, with several cases labelled (SF, Forza Italia, Parti Socialiste, Høyre). The fitted line is almost flat and the association is not statistically significant, so knowing how internally democratic a senior party is tells you little about its youth wing.

Small-multiple plot showing the distribution of internal democracy, autonomy and access for the youth wings of each of the 11 countries, with medians marked. Youth wings look more alike within a country than across countries: autonomy is uniformly high in Denmark, Norway and Sweden but low and dispersed in Italy, France and Portugal, and access sits near zero almost everywhere except a few Finnish and Italian cases. Country differences account for much of the variation in internal democracy and autonomy, while party family accounts for essentially none.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

🇩🇰 What does a record-fragmented parliament do to government formation? @karinakosped.bsky.social examines Denmark's 2026 election where party fragmentation hit an all-time record and forming a four-party minority government took a record 71 days. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Description of the article "Record-high fragmentation, clean drinking water and pigs' welfare: the Danish General Election 2026" by Karina Kosiara-Pedersen, published online first in West European Politics.

Table comparing seats and votes for every party at the Danish Folketing elections of 24 March 2026 and 1 November 2022. All 12 parties standing in 2026 won seats. The Social Democrats stay the largest party but lose heavily; the Green Left rises to become second largest; the Danish People's Party makes the biggest gain, recovering after its collapse in 2022; the Liberals fall to their worst result ever. Turnout barely changed on 2022. The table covers the 175 seats elected in Denmark, excluding the four elected in Greenland and the Faroe Islands.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

🇪🇺 Do heatwaves at home make MEPs talk climate? @buzogany.bsky.social, @mihailchiru.bsky.social & @vladsurdea.bsky.social match 2 decades of district weather to 130,000+ EP questions. More hazards go with more climate questions, but the link mostly runs between countries. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Description of the article "Climate-related hazards and issue attention to climate policy in the European Parliament" by Aron Buzogány, Mihail Chiru and Vlad Surdea-Hernea, published online first in West European Politics.

Three-panel plot from the interaction models, showing predicted climate attention across hazard levels for three party positions: environmentally friendly (solid green), neutral or centrist (dashed grey) and environmental sceptic (dotted orange). The green line sits above the other two in every panel and the three run broadly parallel — party position sets the level of climate attention rather than conditioning how MEPs respond to hazards. Predicted attention rises with wet-spell exposure but declines across the observed range of heat episodes and temperature anomalies in these models.

Three-panel line plot showing the predicted share of an MEP's written questions that concern climate change as district heat episodes, wet spells and temperature anomalies increase. All three panels slope upward, with shaded confidence bands widening at higher hazard levels. These are the baseline models without country fixed effects; the paper reports that the associations disappear once country fixed effects are added.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

🌡️ What makes people support climate policy? In two experiments, @mguinjoan.bsky.social, @tonirodon.bsky.social and @joelardiaca.bsky.social find cost framing sharply cuts support. Further, redistribution plays a key role: citizens favour policies helping the poorest. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Description of the article "Public support for climate policies: costs, redistribution, and ideological divides" by Marc Guinjoan, Toni Rodon and Joel Ardiaca, published online first in West European Politics.

Dot plot showing the change in mean support for ten climate policies when their costs (red) or benefits (green) are made explicit, relative to a control group given no such information. Cost framing pushes support down for most policies — furthest for reducing intensive irrigation (−0.9 points on the 0–10 scale), closing thermal power plants and a carbon tax (both −0.7) — while benefit framing produces only small changes clustered around zero.

Coefficient plot of marginal means from the conjoint experiment: the probability of choosing a city with each attribute. The four climate policies each raise the probability modestly, higher costs lower it more than higher benefits raise it, and the situation of the poorest matters most — the probability rises to 0.60 when the poorest are expected to improve and falls to 0.37 when they are expected to worsen, while the situation of the wealthiest barely shifts choices.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

📖 New issue out! West European Politics 49(6) 🎉 👉 EU long-termism, enlargement and defence, the Green Deal, climate policy's rural geography, defending democracy, electoral legitimacy, judicial diversity, plus the Irish 2024 and Czech 2025 elections. 🔗 www.tandfonline.com/toc/fwep20/4...

tandfonline.com

West European Politics

Volume 49, Issue 6 of West European Politics

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Joel Ardiaca @joelardiaca.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

🎉 Very happy to see my first published paper finally out in @wepsocial.bsky.social ! In this paper, we study public support for climate policies. Across two experiments in Spain, we find that perceived costs matter more than benefits, while redistribution plays a key role in shaping public support.

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Nuffield College Library @nuffieldlibrary.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Perceived class positions and opinion-based polarisation: experimental evidence from the UK doi.org/10.1080/0140... Paper in @wepsocial.bsky.social by @ronjasczepanski.bsky.social and @nuffieldcollege.bsky.social Fellow Geoffrey Evans

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

🌍 How do MPs talk about climate change? Analysing Italian MP's speeches, @paridecarrara.bsky.social, @paologambacciani.bsky.social & Luca Pinto find that the right stresses immediate local harm, the left long-term fixes. Where deadly storms hit, the gap widens. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Title and abstract page of the article “How party ideology and constituency risk shape MPs’ speeches on climate change” by Paride Carrara, Paolo Gambacciani and Luca Pinto, published online first in West European Politics. The abstract’s three findings sentences are highlighted.

Dot-and-whisker plot (Figure 2) showing each Italian parliamentary party group’s average Impacts-Responses Attention Balance in climate speeches (18th legislature, 2018–2022), with 95% confidence intervals; negative values indicate more attention to Specific Impacts, positive values more attention to Systemic Responses.

Two-panel plot (Figure 3) of conditional marginal effects with 95% confidence bands: the left panel shows the marginal effect of a party’s left-right position rising as a constituency’s victim rate from natural events increases; the right panel shows the marginal effect of the victim rate rising across the party left-right scale.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

👥 Do we back our class — or where we think it stands? In a UK experiment, @ronjasczepanski.bsky.social & Geoffrey Evans find working-class Britons feel closer to an immigration or environment camp — pro or anti — once told their class is the majority there. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Title and abstract page of the article “Perceived class positions and opinion-based polarisation: experimental evidence from the UK” by Ronja Sczepanski and Geoffrey Evans, published online first in West European Politics. The abstract’s two findings sentences are highlighted.

Four-panel plot (Figure 5) of predicted values from linear regression models, with 95% confidence intervals, showing how telling working-class respondents that the working class leans pro- or anti-immigration or pro- or anti-environment shifts their closeness to the corresponding opinion-based groups relative to a control condition.

Four-panel plot (Figure 6) of predicted values from linear regression models, with 95% confidence intervals, showing how the same treatments shift the closeness that pro- and anti-immigration and pro- and anti-environment supporters feel toward the working class.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

🗣️ How do MPs talk about political trust? @eefjesteenvoorden.bsky.social, Atle Haugsgjerd, Erika van Elsas, and Tom van der Meer hand-code 20 years of parliamentary debates in four countries. Where trust talk is most common, MPs mostly use it to discredit rivals. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Abstract and title page of "Politicians on political trust: substantive and strategic use in four West European parliaments (1998–2018)" by Eefje Steenvoorden, Atle Haugsgjerd, Erika van Elsas, and Tom van der Meer, published online first in West European Politics.

Table 2: Four types of diagnoses in the coding scheme, distinguishing political (dis)trust and related attitudes for citizens versus politicians as trust subjects, crossed with political trust, related concepts, or non-political trust as the focus.

Figure 5: Pie charts showing purposive frames by coalition/opposition status and by mainstream/challenger party type, across the four countries. Coalition parties lean toward positive framing while opposition parties lean toward blaming and criticising; the mainstream-challenger split shows a similar but weaker pattern, most visible in Portugal, where mainstream parties also frequently use the discrediting frame.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 02/07/2026

🏥 How does left-right politics shape health care? Carsten Jensen compares the UK, Denmark, and Germany: partisanship bites hardest on who delivers care, not on financing or regulation — those are locked in by near-universal public demand for quality. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Abstract and title page of "The politics of health care: lessons for welfare state research" by Carsten Jensen, published online first in West European Politics.

Table 1: Overview of cases comparing England, Denmark, and Germany by welfare regime type (residual, encompassing, Bismarckian), decommodification scores, and dominant modes of health care regulation, financing, and delivery, alongside health spending as a share of GDP in 2000 and 2024.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

📈 Good news for West European Politics: our latest Clarivate Journal Impact Factor is up! The two-year impact factor rises from 3.6 to 4.0, and the five-year figure also climbs, to around 5.0. Thank you to our authors, reviewers, and editors. 🔗 www.tandfonline.com/journals/fwe...

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West European Politics

West European Politics publishes research on politics, government and public policy in Western Europe, including coverage of the EU and national elections.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

🇮🇪 Why was Ireland the exception in a year of anti-incumbent, far-right votes? @conorlittle.bsky.social shows the main parties held firm: Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael renewed their vows, Sinn Féin's vote slid to 19%, and far-right parties won 1.6% and no seats. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

First page of the article "The general election of November 2024 in the Republic of Ireland: Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael renew their vows" by Conor Little (University of Limerick), published open access and online first in West European Politics, showing the title, author, and abstract.

Table 1 from the article, comparing the 2024 and 2020 Irish general election results by party. In 2024, Fianna Fáil won 48 seats on 21.9% of the vote, Sinn Féin 39 seats on 19.0% (down from 24.5% in 2020), and Fine Gael 38 seats on 20.8%. Turnout was 59.7%, down from 62.2%.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

🌍 When foreign aid is misused, does the backlash spread? Bernhard Reinsberg & @haleyswedlund.bsky.social ran experiments with 2,205 UK citizens + 117 MPs. A real scandal cut support — and for the public it spread to other recipients too. Suspending the aid didn't undo it. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

First page of the article "Fact or fear? Elite and public opinion on the misuse of foreign aid" by Bernhard Reinsberg and Haley Swedlund, published online first in West European Politics, showing the title, authors, and abstract.

Figure 2, a coefficient plot titled "Average treatment effect of aid scandals among citizens." Learning of the scandal lowers UK citizens' support both for direct aid to Tanzania and, by a smaller amount, for direct aid to low-income countries generally — both estimates are negative, with confidence intervals falling left of zero.

Figure 5, a coefficient plot titled "Average treatment effect of aid scandal with donor response among citizens." Even when citizens are also told the UK suspended aid in response, support for direct aid to Tanzania and for aid to low-income countries stays lower — both estimates remain negative — so the donor's response does not offset the backlash.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

📍 Heading to EPSS in Belfast this week? WEP editor Klaus Goetz will be there and would be glad to meet colleagues who want to talk through an idea for a symposium or special issue. Just drop him a line at goetz.lmu@gmail.com.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

🌍 Do globalisation's losers fear different threats? @heikogiebler.bsky.social, Lukas Antoine and Rasmus Ollroge find that across 30 countries, self-identified losers fear immigration, surveillance and elite influence more — and climate change and discrimination less. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

First page of the article "Threat perceptions and the globalisation divide" by Heiko Giebler, Lukas Antoine and Rasmus Ollroge, published online first in West European Politics, showing the title, authors and abstract.

Figure 1: a coefficient plot of average marginal effects estimating how seeing oneself as a loser of globalisation relates to naming each of fifteen societal threats. Immigration, surveillance, large companies' influence and lack of political influence show positive effects, while climate change, discrimination and pandemics show negative effects. Based on 52,218 respondents across 30 countries.

Figure 2: a scatterplot comparing the estimated probability that globalisation losers (vertical axis) and non-losers (horizontal axis) select each societal threat, against a diagonal reference line. Threats above the line, such as immigration and surveillance, are chosen more often by self-identified losers; those below it, such as climate change, more often by non-losers.

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Reposted by West European Politics

Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics @sciencespo-cee.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

#VendrediLecture 📚 Do climate proposals pay off at the ballot box? While climate denial is strongly penalised, supporting climate goals is electorally rewarding, contrary to backing ambitious, concrete climate policies, @malojan.bsky.social shows in @wepsocial.bsky.social. doi.org/10.1080/0140...

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

🇪🇺 Is the EU's openness to trade now its biggest weakness? Sophie Meunier and Alasdair R. Young argue the EU still sets global rules but has limited power for coercive economic statecraft, unlike the US or China. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

First page of the article "The EU as a global actor in the geoeconomic age: power and weakness in and through trade" by Sophie Meunier and Alasdair R. Young, published online first in West European Politics, showing the title, authors and abstract.

Figure 1: a two-by-two typology of EU trade policy. The rows distinguish a (geo)political from an economic focus, and the columns a mitigating from a leveraging ambition, producing four categories: weakness through trade, power through trade, weakness in trade and power in trade.

Figure 2: a triangular diagram of an "impossible trinity" with economic interdependence, economic security and geopolitical competition at the three corners. Each side is labelled with an era — the age of globalisation, the geoeconomic age and the Cold War — indicating which two goals are prioritised in each period.

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West European Politics @wepsocial.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

💶 Why did farm-budget fights split EU coalitions but cohesion funds didn't? David Moloney and Mads Dagnis Jensen draw on interviews and EU documents: in the 2021–27 budget, CAP funding split coalitions as states broke ranks, while cohesion coalitions held firm. 🔗 doi.org/10.1080/0140...

First page of the article "Budget games real actors play: examining the agreement on CAP and cohesion for MFF 2021–2027" by David Moloney and Mads Dagnis Jensen, published online first in West European Politics, showing the title, authors and abstract.

Figure 3: a combined bubble chart overlaying the CAP coalitions and the Cohesion Policy coalitions on the same capabilities-versus-cohesion axes, showing how coalition structure differs between the two budget areas.

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