What explains electoral success in Mexico's gubernatorial elections after its transition to democracy? And to what extent did governors shape electoral outcomes in this period? This paper argues democratic competition, combined with the decentralisation of resources to the states, reinforced authoritarian-era practices like clientelism and the discretionary use of public funds by incumbents. As a result, electoral success was driven less by government performance and more by the support candidates received from the incumbent governor. Candidates from the governor's party were more likely to win because governors could deploy public resources, channel funds, or pressure local electoral authorities to tilt the playing field in favor of their co-partisans, thereby diminishing the relevance of performance-based voting. The analysis draws on a dataset of 238 candidates nested in 98 gubernatorial elections held between 2000 and 2017, along with interviews with gubernatorial candidates that shed light on the mechanisms behind the incumbency advantage.

ABSTRACT Federal democracies rely on active local political participation, yet both anecdotal and empirical evidence from Western democracies highlight increasing challenges in recruiting municipal candidates in recent decades. This study provides systematic and long run empirical evidence on this issue for Switzerland, analysing data spanning municipal council elections across 500+ municipalities of three major Swiss cantons since the 1970s. Using a subsample analysis in the canton of Lucerne, we apply two-way fixed effects models to analyse the impact of monetary compensation and (expected) workload on the number of candidates and the fluctuation rate in municipal councils, drawing on the economic theory of political selection. Our findings show that higher salaries are not associated with more competitive local elections or longer terms in office. However, reducing the workload associated with municipal mandates appears to be a more effective strategy for increasing candidate supply, particularly in recruiting women.

Dynamic returns to political tenure

This study examines how Nigerian online news headlines discursively construct emerging opposition party mergers led by the African Democratic Congress (ADC) ahead of the 2027 general elections. Although previous research in Nigerian political communication has focused on election-day reporting and campaign rhetoric, little attention has been given to preelection discourse or to how headlines shape public perceptions of alternative political blocs before formal campaigns begin. To address this gap, the study applies Norman Fairclough’s three-dimensional model of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), which enables an examination of how textual features (lexis, modality, transitivity), discursive practices (news routines, sourcing, digital circulation), and sociocultural contexts (media ownership, ideological alignments, political economy) interact to construct meaning and reproduce power relations. Using a purposively selected corpus of 100 headlines published between March and September 2025 across six nationally influential online platforms, the study investigates how linguistic strategies frame the legitimacy, cohesion, and viability of the ADC-led merger movement. Findings show that headlines predominantly depict the mergers as unstable, fragmented, or politically insignificant, thereby delegitimizing opposition actors and reinforcing incumbent advantage. These discursive patterns reflect broader sociopolitical structures, demonstrating how headline discourse functions as an ideological instrument that shapes public perception and restricts democratic plurality.

Oswald Menghin and Armin Dadieu had two things in common: both were academics and Austrian National Socialists who served as political functionaries after the Anschluss in 1938. At the end of the Second World War, they fled Allied justice and thus became ‘Nazis on the run’. This article argues that from this point onwards, we must understand Dadieu and Menghin as agents in the history of flight. We must regard their illegal escapes via Italy and their new beginnings in Argentina in 1948 as part of the great (forced) migration movement and thus as part of research on the history of postwar displacement. Even after their transformation from functionaries to fugitives, both remained part of the (former) Nazi elite. Their postwar biographies lie at the intersection of research on the perpetrators of the Holocaust and scientific migration, and they established loyal, multilayered support networks. After the unconditional surrender of the German Wehrmacht, their wives and lovers, friends and former political associates helped them to reestablish their social lives on the run; the Catholic Church enabled their migration; and Juan Perón's modernization project in Argentina helped them to establish their careers. The local and global assistance that they received from these networks ultimately made both Nazi scholars privileged migrants.

Constitutional justice functions as a substantive mechanism to uphold constitutional supremacy, limit state power, and protect fundamental democratic values. In presidential systems, one of its most critical institutional expressions is the regulation of presidential term limits, which aims to prevent the concentration of executive authority and to ensure democratic leadership rotation. This article examines the relationship between presidential term limits, constitutional justice, and the doctrine of eternity clauses as a means of preventing unconstitutional constitutional amendments in Indonesia. The study aims to assess whether presidential term limits should be constitutionally entrenched as unamendable provisions in order to safeguard Indonesia’s post-authoritarian constitutional order. Employing normative legal research, this study applies conceptual and statutory approaches by analyzing constitutional theory, comparative constitutional practices, constitutional court decisions, and Indonesian constitutional provisions, particularly the 1945 Constitution and its amendments. The findings demonstrate that presidential term limits are frequently targeted through formally valid constitutional amendments that substantively erode democratic principles, illustrating the paradox of unconstitutional constitutional amendments. Comparative experiences from Latin America, Africa, and Europe reveal that the removal or extension of term limits systematically reinforces incumbency advantages and weakens checks and balances. In the Indonesian context, debates surrounding the possibility of extending presidential terms highlight the vulnerability of constitutional safeguards when amendment procedures are dominated by political majorities. This article argues that designating presidential term limits as an eternity clause—or at minimum treating them as a substantive constitutional principle subject to strict judicial protection—is essential to preserving constitutional justice. Such entrenchment would reinforce Indonesia’s constitutional identity, prevent the abuse of amendment powers, and ensure that constitutional change remains aligned with democratic accountability and the rule of law.

ABSTRACT Gender inequality persists in civic and political arenas. Historically, school volunteer positions have served as a bridge to encourage women’s mobility into politics, specifically through school board elections. This school board service can facilitate women’s advancement into higher political office. However, some school boards have recently experienced high levels of public attention, activism, and conflict around school policies. Further, it is possible women and men face different levels of criticism or attacks in these polarized arenas. Given this overall context, we ask: has the increase in conflict over school policies qualitatively changed the nature of school board service, especially for women? Are there gender differences in political aspirations across school board members? To investigate these questions, we analyzed survey data from 380 elected school board trustees in Texas. We find that women, relative to men, express lower levels of political ambition and have more concerns about campaigning. To understand why, we also conducted a qualitative analysis of school board experiences. We find that women, relative to men, report more personal attacks and negative experiences, especially from constituents. This suggests that more acrimonious civic environments could disproportionately affect women’s civic engagement and ambition. In turn, this could ultimately affect gender representation in government.

Incumbency and campaign spending are key determinants of electoral success in legislative elections. In open-list proportional representation systems, their impact might be contingent on the number of open seats in each district. When there are more open seats, incumbents seeking re-election and those who spend more should have higher chances of success. Using data from 2216 candidates in the 2017 and 2021 Chamber of Deputies elections in Chile’s 28 districts, we assess the presence of the mediating effect of open seats. We confirm the importance of incumbency and campaign spending, but the interaction effects of open seats with incumbency and campaign spending are not significant for the chances of winning a seat. The presence of open seats might induce more competitive challengers to enter the race, diluting the expected positive interaction of open seats with incumbency and campaign spending on electoral success.

This study aims to analyze the incumbent's advantage in the 2024 Manggarai Regency Legislative Election with a case study of Paulus Peos' victory in Electoral District I. The theory used is David R Mayhew's approach. The method used is a descriptive qualitative approach through interviews, observation, and documentation. The results of the study show that Paulus Peos' success in retaining his legislative seat for four consecutive terms was supported by three main factors, namely name recognition (advertising), credit claiming, and position taking. Through advertising, Paulus Peos built a positive image and connection with the community; through credit claiming, Paulus Peos emphasized his contributions to various development programs; and through position taking, Paulus Peos demonstrated his commitment to the aspirations of the people. These three factors fostered strong voter loyalty and trust, proving that the incumbent's advantage stemmed not only from his political position but also from his ability to build social relationships and his consistent performance in serving the community.

We study eighteenth-century settler elites in the Stellenbosch–Drakenstein district. We examine income and wealth inequality from 1720 to 1810, which enabled the emergence of an economic elite. We then ask whether this group also held political office, and how that configuration evolved. Using annual tax censuses alongside lists of heemraden, local officials serving on district civil administrative and judicial boards, we recover the distribution of resources within the free-settler population and set it against district office-holding. Three results stand out. First, within-settler inequality was high and persistent. Secondly, the sectoral bases of elite income shifted over time: wine and wheat dominated early in the century, while livestock gained importance later. Thirdly, wealth and office moved together: appointees were disproportionately drawn from the top of the distribution, signalling a tight alignment between market power and local authority. These results make visible the internal bargains that sustained Company rule, linking economic rank to political authority and, in turn, to the workings of colonial state capacity.

This article examines the coalitional architecture of the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) Party during 1952–1966 as a deliberate strategy to safeguard santri interests within the state, rather than a mere act of accommodation or resistance to the regime. Beginning with the 1952 Palembang Congress—when NU withdrew from Masyumi and established its own political party—this study maps two axes of coalition: the horizontal (cross-party and cross-ideological alliances, from the 1950s cabinets to limited accommodation within the Nasakom scheme) and the vertical (the governance of the Syuriah–Tanfidziyah structure and autonomous bodies that mediated between syar‘iyyah rationality and siyasiyyah calculation). Employing a historical–qualitative approach (heuristics, source criticism, interpretation, historiography) complemented by light quantitative mapping (coalition timelines, cabinet participation frequency, distribution of political offices), the data are drawn from congress proceedings, organizational decrees, elite speeches and memoirs, contemporary press archives, and selected interviews. The key findings reveal that (1) religious legitimacy grounded in fiqh siyasah and the doctrine of waliyyul amri ad-daruri bisy-syaukah served as the normative foundation of NU’s coalition; (2) the strategic use of executive–legislative positions—especially the Ministry of Religious Affairs—converted pesantren cultural authority into policy leverage; and (3) internal correction mechanisms between senior ulama and younger elites functioned as an ideological safeguard, particularly amid rising tensions with the PKI before and after 1965. The study’s contribution lies in conceptualizing a model of “coalitional architecture” that integrates structure–process–discourse as an analytical lens to interpret the Islam–state relationship at the end of the Sukarno era, and to explain why NU’s political choices appeared ambivalent yet consistently aimed to preserve policy access while minimizing political costs for the pesantren base.

This study introduces a framework to identify opinion leaders on Telegram, adapting a methodology developed for Twitter. The work is motivated by the need to examine influence dynamics on hybrid platforms like Telegram, where platform affordances can potentially facilitate the spread of disinformation and polarizing discourse. Specifically, the traceability of forwarded messages provides analytical possibilities for understanding these complex communication networks. The analysis involves a case study conducted with data extracted from public groups supporting Jair Bolsonaro's presidential re-election campaign. Using network analysis techniques, the method maps key roles including influencers, conversation starters, active engagers, and network creators. Results highlight these actors' roles in shaping information circulation within Telegram's public groups and channels. The discussion emphasizes the framework's systematic approach to analyzing opinion leadership. This research contributes to understanding how hybrid social platforms facilitate influence and information dissemination, offering practical tools for researchers studying emerging social media ecosystems.

ABSTRACT Research on identity-based motivation shows that people are motivated to take action to achieve their long-term goals when they perceive a connection between their current identity (i.e. “today me”) and an image of an accomplished identity in the future. Research inspired by Conceptual Metaphor Theory reveals that this connection can be strengthened by framing goal pursuit metaphorically as a journey along a continuous path connecting current and possible future identities. Journey-metaphoric framing has been shown to improve motivation across domains, but no research has tested its potential effectiveness motivating political ambition. To fill this gap, we test whether exposure to journey-metaphoric framing connecting one’s current identity to a possible identity as an elected political officeholder increases women’s political motivation. We randomly assigned college-aged women enrolled in a leadership program to receive either a journey-metaphoric framing or an equivalent literal framing of their current identity and possible future officeholder identity. We measured several indices of motivation to participate in elective political office. We also content-coded the language participants used to describe these two identities. Results point to a potential motivational benefit of a situationally activated journey metaphor, but also highlight the persistent challenge posed by encouraging candidate emergence among women.

This research examines the causes of gender inequality in Iraq by analyzing the gaps between women and men in various areas, including social, political, and economic dimensions. The research relied on statistics and data issued by Iraqi official bodies and international organizations. The data was analyzed, the causes of gender inequality were assessed, and Iraq was ranked below the Gender Inequality Index. It aims to understand the global perspective on the causes of gender inequality and why society typically lacks justice. It also aims to understand the nature of gender inequality in the labor market, shed light on the nature of gender inequality in political leadership, and analyze the causes of the gender gap politically, socially, and culturally in Iraq. The research utilized analytical tools to explain the differences between women and men and the distribution of roles and responsibilities within society, relying on a descriptive analytical approach to analyze quantitative data related to justice between men and women in Iraq. The study recommends amending the Political Parties and Organizations Law to include a framework that contributes to activating women's role and participation in decision-making positions, integrating them into the party structure, and ensuring their participation in senior party positions. Political parties and organizations should work to remove all barriers of discrimination against women in political activity and take into account the opportunity for women to participate in party leadership. Furthermore, programs should be developed to develop women's leadership to assume positions of responsibility and political office, increasing their representation on the boards of independent bodies, and forming a women's political bloc to unify their efforts in advocating for women's rights issues.

Barangay level is the basic unit in the public governance where the basic and immediate services of the government can be found. Direct governance and public service is essential part of the nation building because it is the frontline that delivers and implements all the programs and projects from the local and national government level. This study was conducted to identify the governance practices and challenges of Barangay Officials in delivering the public service as a basis for developing a project that will enhance the public office governance. The researcher used a descriptive-quantitative method. A self-made questionnaire was used to gather the data and using the purposive sampling the 46 respondents were identified. The research reveals that there is a start of generational shift in political officials in the barangay level. In the governance practices it is notable that public servants were proactive in governing the barangay however, they are lack of training that will capacitate them to further enhance their ability to increase the pace of development in their barangay. There are also identified challenges and issues that needs to be resolve through different extension service and partnership with the academic institutions.

Bureaucracy was conceived to be an instrument of development and good governance by providing fair mechanisms for service delivery. Bureaucracy is a system of organization used to describe the authority relationships among employees of a public sector organization; and the methods or approached adopt by government towards implementation of public policies or programmes. In line with the above, Okafor (2005) defines bureaucracy as that machinery of government designed to execute the decisions and policies made by political office holders Bureaucracy in an administrative structure design that depict the characteristics of government institutions that are involve in the implementation of government programmes According to Eme and Onwuka (2010), bureaucracy does not cover political appointees such as ministers and advisers or members of the judiciary either at the federal, state and local government tiers of government. Political office holders make policies while bureaucracy implements it.

Abstract Good governance and effective problem solving are important goals for American government, and one branch of political science that focuses on them is research on the politics of public policy. This essay summarizes important insights from that literature and illustrates their relevance to two problems: housing unaffordability and public pension underfunding. With housing unaffordability, problem-solving politics is currently activated, whereas with pension underfunding, it is not. To understand why, it is important to consider the features of the policy, the organization of interests, and the politics of problem creation. In the problem-creation stage, the two cases share much in common: they feature lopsided interest structures buttressed by longstanding institutions. But for the activation of problem-solving politics and what problem solving looks like, there are meaningful differences between the two. One difference relates to how the problems are experienced by the broader public. The other is that in one of the cases, the side with vested interest in the status quo is a well-organized interest group. In both cases, problem-solvers tend to emerge from political offices with broader constituencies: state-level offices for housing, and executives (governors and mayors) for pensions.

The experience of Hungarian Protestants during the Counter-Reformation was that their influential aristocratic supporters played a key role in their survival. Therefore, especially after the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, which ensured their equality of rights with Catholics, their churches instinctively sought to place their lay leaders to higher political and public offices, or vice versa, to recruit their lay and even church leaders from the ruling political elite, which created a close interdependence between the Reformed Church and the political establishment of the national liberal dualist era. Gaining positions in the political arena was also linked to gains in other areas of social life such as education, culture, and science. And vice versa: gaining influence in the fields of education, culture, and science also carried political weight and recognition and unconsciously reinforced the sense of social and legal security of the Hungarian Reformed. In our study, we present three mosaic pieces of the Hungarian Reformed connections to the academic world. The first one is an analysis of the growth of Reformed university professors between 1848 and 1945. The second is a presentation of the thought of a Reformed scholar, church leader, and public figure, István Bernát, on the relationship between religion and science. Lastly, the third one is a discourse of confessionalist church reformers following the First World War, on the founding of their own Reformed academy of sciences.

Drawing on theoretical perspectives from the literature on childhood socialization and cultural capital, we investigate how the socioeconomic status (SES) background of public administrators shapes their relationships with elected political officials and their staff. Analyses of over 30 years of survey data indicate that American state agency directors from higher SES backgrounds report more frequent interaction with political principals, suggesting that early-life exposure to elite norms and the accumulation of cultural capital facilitate access and ease in elite political spaces. In addition, these administrators report lower levels of perceived gubernatorial influence on major policy changes and agency rules and regulations, indicating the potential for high SES socialization to buttress bureaucratic autonomy and administrative discretion. These findings underscore the importance of class background as a formative social identity, and suggest that scholars should take it seriously in public administration research, particularly as a dimension of social equity and elite political navigation.

Stress is a response to external environmental conditions that encourages individuals to pursue changes in their lives. We examine the relationship between stress and federal and provincial political leaders' approval ratings. We theorize that, as a strategy to cope with the pandemic stresses outside of their direct control, individuals will redirect their frustrations toward incumbents. We hypothesize that greater experiences with stress will negatively correlate with the approval of political incumbents even among members of incumbents' political in-group. We analyze data from the COVID-19 Monitor survey, a multi-wave, cross-sectional survey of over 56,000 Canadians. On three out of four measures, we find that stress negatively impacted incumbent approval, and that these negative impacts occur among the incumbent's supporters and non-supporters. On the fourth measure, we find the effect of stress on approval is moderated, positive or negative, by whether regional leaders took action to limit the spread of coronavirus disease 2019.