The Logic of Term Limits Pledges

This article offers a rationale for candidates who voluntarily pledge to term limits. My analysis is built on a standard political agency model to which I add an election campaign where candidates can commit not to seek a second term. Pledging to term limits allows candidates to signal their private type and insulate themselves from career concerns. By doing so, candidates leverage the fact that the representative voter endogenously prefers to elect a candidate who does not seek reelection because she either has on average more desirable attributes, distorts her decisions to a lesser extent, or both. As a result, candidates who pledge to term limits have a higher probability of being elected in the first place. I characterize the equilibria of a model specification in which politicians differ with respect to their policy preferences and uncover circumstances in which term limits pledges are informative and improve the voter's welfare.

Choosing the right COVID-19 indicator: crude mortality, case fatality, and infection fatality rates influence policy preferences, behaviour, and understanding

Individuals worldwide are overwhelmed with news about COVID-19. In times of pandemic, media alternate the usage of different COVID-19 indicators, ranging from the more typical crude mortality rate to the case fatality rate, and the infection fatality rate continuously. In this article, we used experimental methods to test whether and how the treatment of individuals with different types of information on COVID-19 is able to change policy preferences, individual and social behaviours, and the understanding of COVID-19 indicators. Results show that while the usage of the crude mortality rate proves to be more efficient in terms of supporting policy preferences and behaviours to contain the virus, all indicators suffer from a significant misunderstanding on behalf of the population.

How party polarization shapes the structuring of policy preferences in Europe

A significant body of literature has addressed the impact of party polarization on voting behavior. Yet little is known of the relationship between party polarization and belief systems. The present study argues that party polarization enhances the ideological consistency of belief systems and does so for the citizenry as a whole. We first demonstrate that the more party systems are polarized on economic and sociocultural issues, the more consistently belief systems are aligned with the progressive-conservative continuum. Second, we show that ideological consistency is greater in highly polarized party systems, not only among the most politically attuned Europeans but also among those with lower levels of political sophistication. Results have implications for our understanding of citizen competence and responsiveness to elite cues in polarized party systems.

Attention to News Media, Emotional Responses, and Policy Preferences about Public Health Crisis: The Case of Fine Dust Pollution in South Korea

This study examines how attention to science and political news may influence the way people feel about an environmental risk, and how this in turn impacts policy preferences. Using an online survey conducted on the issue of fine dust pollution in South Korea, this study found that science news attention was associated with greater anxiety and anger about the issue, whereas political news attention was associated with fear and sadness/depression (as well as anxiety and anger). Furthermore, mediation analysis showed that science news attention indirectly influenced support for preventive policy through anxiety, whereas political news attention indirectly influenced punitive policy support through anger and fear. Theoretical and practical implications of this study are discussed.

Crises and social policy preferences: The impact of Covid-19 in Britain

Do crises substantially change public support for taxes and spending, and why? We leverage the multifaceted character of the Covid-19 pandemic to test different theoretical micro-mechanisms usually confounded in observational research, or tested in isolation. Our randomized survey experiment provides four main findings. First, the economic and health dimensions of the crisis generated a substantial left-wing turn among the British public. Second, the effects are stronger on spending priorities (unemployment and health policies) than on who should pay for the welfare bill (progressivity of income and wealth taxes). Third, economic self-interested motivations are not relevant mechanisms to explain our findings. Fourth, framings associated with open borders and the global spread of the virus polarized welfare attitudes along immigration policy preferences. The generalizability of our findings, the prospects of redistributive conflicts after Covid, and the validity of established theories of welfare preferences in times of crisis are discussed.