Demonization constitutes the construction of a simplified symbolic reality through the prism of hatred. The elite classes have been framed within the discourse of far-left parties in Spain to make them antagonistic to their target audience. In this area, research tends to use explicit measures, but few have used implicit measures. This article aims to assess both types of voter perceptions of anti-elite class messages in Spain. Eighty Spanish voters belonging to left- and right-wing ideologies participated in this study. Implicit attitudes were measured through the implicit association test. The result shows that demonization is deepening in various layers of society in order to provoke a confrontation with the elite classes. Social networks have emerged as a means of social control, but they are not perceived as such by the subjects but rather as an additional informational or purely propagandistic element. But even among the public who are aware of the latter, the more their perception of the elite classes is limited to demonization, the more extreme their social vision is.

In this article, we aim to disentangle the extent to which citizens’ conceptions of democratic decision-making are shaped by populist attitudes or rather by radical left and right host ideologies. Following recent work by Landwehr and Steiner (2017), we distinguish four modes of decision-making embedded in different conceptions of democracy: trusteeship democracy, anti-pluralism, deliberative proceduralism, and majoritarianism. Drawing on data from Austria and Germany, we show that populism and radical host ideologies tap into different dimensions of democracy. While populism is primarily directed against representative forms of democratic decision-making, preferences for deliberative procedures and majority decisions appear entirely shaped by radical left and right host ideologies. Populism thus views decision-making based on the general will of the people as the only legitimate democratic procedure, whereas radical left and right host ideologies aim at involving the relevant group(s) of citizens. Further analyses of the interactions between populist attitudes and radical host ideologies confirm that the effects of populism remain robust and thus independent of the specific manifestations of radical host ideologies. These findings help to disentangle the causes of democratic discontent and to develop possible responses through democratic reforms that specifically and separately aim to mitigate populism and radical host ideologies.

This article examines the perception of electoral integrity in Austria and Germany, two established democracies with robust electoral systems. Despite their high standards, both countries have faced significant challenges regarding electoral integrity. In Austria, the 2016 presidential election was annulled by the Constitutional Court due to procedural irregularities affecting postal ballots. In Germany, widespread organizational failures during the 2021 federal election—including missing ballot papers—prompted the Federal Constitutional Court to order a partial rerun. Although no evidence of intentional fraud was found, these breaches were deemed sufficient to undermine public confidence in the electoral process and raise the question to what extent is electoral fraud perceived in Austria and Germany and whether electoral integrity is therefore rated low in both countries. The analysis proposes a multidimensional conceptualization of electoral integrity, incorporating fraud risk perception (voting by mail vs. in the polling station), populist voting, and feelings of economic insecurity. Methodologically, the study applies a harmonized set of survey indicators to enable explorative cross-national comparison and uses multivariate regression models to identify individual-level predictors of electoral confidence. Drawing on two surveys—conducted in Austria in 2020 and Germany in 2025—the analysis reveals that the perceived risk of voting in person or by post is linked to a negative assessment of institutional integrity, but not to external influences such as foreign interference or manipulation through biased information on social media platforms. This is particularly interesting because, in the two well-functioning democracies studied, the former risks are objectively considered to be significantly lower than, for example, the influence of misinformation on social media.

Student mobility constitutes a core pillar of higher education internationalisation. Reflecting wider global trends, Canada and the EU have increasingly prioritised equity and inclusion in their student mobility programmes. Canada’s Global Skills Opportunity programme, launched in 2021, provides federal funding specifically to low-income students, students with disabilities, and Indigenous students. The EU’s Erasmus Programme has a long-standing tradition of community-building through inclusive student mobility. This article traces the principle of inclusion as a mobility rationale and analyses the role of the federal government in Canada and the European Commission in the EU supporting it. Using a policy framing lens, this study compares problem definitions, policy rationales, and solutions for federal/supranational involvement in student mobility. Findings show that inclusiveness has been an underlying silent value, yet it has mostly supported larger political and economic goals in both contexts.

The EU–Jordan Compact (hereafter Compact) has been identified as being a groundbreaking, comprehensive approach to global refugee protection. Thus far, research on this underexplored case has mainly focused on the effects of the Compact. The policy process leading to the adoption of the Compact, as well as the motivations of the EU (i.e., the main donor), remain blackboxed. This article explores how the migration crisis affected the EU Commission’s ability to create coordinated, strategic action in external policy. It does so by tracing the internal EU negotiations and developing a causal model that explains how the Commission could overcome silos and efficiently draft a policy proposal linking the issues of migration and trade. The analysis is based on 13 original in-depth interviews with EU representatives. The article contributes to crisisification theory by presenting a mechanism that explains how the Commission can make use of crises. The Commission created cohesion by reframing the crisis, identifying the relevant policy tools with which to address it, and by reframing the responsibilities of the relevant directorate-general. Furthermore, by utilizing the urgency of the crisis, the Commission enabled rapid policy drafting and created an explicit linkage between refugee policy and trade policy. This linkage provided the member states with the motivation to adopt the proposal as a solution to the ongoing migration crisis.

Populist parties have been shown to attract many voters disillusioned with representative democracies. And some of these parties do indeed propose models of government that challenge contemporary democratic systems. However, we do not know exactly what the democratic preferences of populist party supporters are. We propose to fill this gap by investigating the types of actors that citizens who are more sympathetic to populist parties would like to see play a greater role in their national political system. First, we find that populists believe that citizens should be more involved, highlighting the people-centred nature of populism. Second, they advocate a greater role for business leaders, military generals, and religious leaders, a preference found among both right-wing and left-wing populists. Third, left-wing populists show a unique preference for scientific experts in government, suggesting a technocratic inclination. Conversely, right-wing populists are particularly critical of elected politicians, underlining their deep anti-elitist attitudes. Our findings suggest that, among citizens who are more sympathetic to populist parties, there is support for models of government that challenge representative democracy. The question is whether populist parties would be influenced by these citizens to push for institutional reforms.

European Union (EU) climate politics have polarised over the past decade. Poland especially stands out as the EU member state that has most vehemently opposed numerous decisions to increase the EU’s level of ambition, stirring some turbulence in EU climate politics. Yet, with the publication of the European Green Deal (EGD) in 2019, the European Commission has likewise created turbulence in the Polish parliament’s climate debate. This article analyses those debates and identifies three distinct policy narratives: Poland is in a unique situation, Poland pursues an alternative pathway, and climate policy endangers competitiveness. The alternative pathway narrative, which advocates for the continued use of coal while capturing emissions, faded at roughly the same time when the EGD was proposed at the EU level. Simultaneously, the unique situation narrative, which calls for recognition of Poland’s uniqueness in combination with increased (financial) support, became stronger. The analysis confirms the dominance of the governing party’s narratives, but contrary to previous studies, detects nascent polarisation on climate policy between the right-wing political parties, on the one hand, and the centre-right and centre-left parties, on the other.

Post-crisis accounts of economic governance in Europe have often analysed the monetary policy decisions of the supranational European Central Bank and the fiscal policy coordination of the intergovernmental Council and Eurogroup separately. This is unfortunate since both policy fields are closely linked and increasingly interdependent. We put forward a theory of monetary-fiscal interactions in the Economic and Monetary Union based on the notion of de-commitment and re-commitment. In juxtaposition to the grand theories of neo-functionalism and liberal intergovernmentalism, we argue that EU institutions serve not only to tie the member states to policy commitments but also to untie them from previous policy commitments that have become outdated and harmful. The European Central Bank’s main contribution to safeguarding the Eurozone in 2012 and 2020 has not been to enforce but to relax the monetary financing prohibition of the Treaty, and the Council’s main contribution in 2020 was not to double down on the no bail-out clause but to re-commit to risk-sharing and burden-sharing through the NextGenerationEU programme. We argue and show that economic governance in Europe has progressed through three stages of commitment. Whereas monetary-fiscal interactions followed a commitment logic during the first decade of the Economic and Monetary Union (the “old normal”), the defining feature of the second decade has been de-commitment (the “new normal”). In the Covid-19 crisis, economic governance finally entered a phase of re-commitment (taking the Economic and Monetary Union “back to the future”). The analysis has implications for our understanding of the purpose and power of supranational institutions in overcoming the problem of outdated commitments post-crisis.

In the highly concentrated and consolidated 21st century food systems, a broad range of stakeholders are rarely involved in food-related decision-making processes. One innovative institutional response is the establishment of food policy councils (FPCs). These institutions are often initiated by civil society actors and seek to transform prevailing agro-industrial food systems. They aim to raise awareness for alternative practises of food consumption and production, and they try to shape food policies at different governance levels. FPCs have been acclaimed for their democratic potential in the past. This study uses the five key dimensions of food democracy identified by Hassanein (2008) to assess the ways in which FPCs might represent loci for practising food democracy. This is achieved by taking one of the first FPCs in Germany as an example. During a two-year study period (2016–2018), the emergence of the FPC Oldenburg was studied through participant observations, semi-structured interviews, and document analysis. Data analysis reveals examples of, as well as challenges related to, all five dimensions of food democracy. In addition, the in-depth analysis of the case also illustrates the importance of taking additional aspects into account, i.e., openness and transparency. Looking at an additional dimension of food democracy, which covers the “How?” of the deliberative process, might allow for a more nuanced analysis of the democratic potential of food initiatives in the future.

Investments in parliamentary staff in many countries raise the question: What tasks do they perform in exchange for the public money with which they are paid? So far, academics have mainly described the work of such employees in individual legislatures and have studied them more sophisticatedly in the US and the European Parliament. However, theory-driven empirical comparisons between national parliamentary staff in Europe are mostly missing, especially regarding their partisan side. An exception is the conceptual model developed by Brandsma and Otjes (2024) in a study about all employees of the Dutch lower house. This article applies that tool to another case, the Danish parliament (Folketing), with the dual aims of finding patterns by comparing it to the Netherlands and assessing the comprehensiveness of the model. Interviews with almost all political parties and three managers of the non-partisan staff of the Folketing suggest that the categorization of Brandsma and Otjes (2024) mostly covers the tasks of their staff, but omits important subroles regarding international diplomacy.