West European Politics

@wepsocial.bsky.social

Editors: Klaus H. Goetz, Dorte Sindbjerg Martinsen, Wolfgang C. Müller. Posts by social media editor @chdausgaard.bsky.social

WEP on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/west-european-politics/

@wepsocial.bsky.social

🏛️ 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.
@wepsocial.bsky.social

🌊 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.
@wepsocial.bsky.social

🇪🇺 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.
@wepsocial.bsky.social

🏳️‍🌈 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.
@wepsocial.bsky.social

⏳ 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.
@rdassonneville.bsky.socialReposted by @wepsocial.bsky.social

‼️ 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. 🧵

@indubioproreto.bsky.socialReposted by @wepsocial.bsky.social

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.

@wepsocial.bsky.social

🏢 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.
@wepsocial.bsky.social

🇲🇹 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.
@wepsocial.bsky.social

🗳️ 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.
@wepsocial.bsky.social

🗺️ 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.
@timbale.bsky.socialReposted by @wepsocial.bsky.social

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.
@wepsocial.bsky.social

🇪🇺 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...