The new Zambian president faces long-term challenges

Significance Hichilema's surprise win came despite extensive voter suppression and intimidation attributed to former President Edgar Lungu and the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) against supporters of Hichilema’s United Party for National Development (UPND). Impacts The broad scope of Hichilema’s reform programme will pose difficulties of prioritisation, particularly within current fiscal constraints. Higher copper prices may mitigate some of the social costs associated with debt restructuring and spending cuts. The cancellation of a meeting between President Joe Biden and Hichilema over LGBT rights concerns may complicate relations with Washington.

"I Don't Want Everybody to Vote": Christian Nationalism and Restricting Voter Access in the United States

Though the persistence of voter suppression and disenfranchisement in the US is well-documented, we still know little about their contemporary ideological underpinnings beyond partisanship and racial resentment. Highlighting the Christian Right’s influence in driving anti-democratic sentiment in the post-Civil Rights era, we propose contemporary ideological support for restricting the vote generally, and specifically, to those who prove “worthy,” is undergirded by a pervasive ideology that cloaks authoritarian ethno-traditionalism with the ultimacy and polysemic utility of religious language―Christian nationalism. Nationally representative data collected weeks before the November 2020 elections reveal Christian nationalism is a leading predictor that Americans deny that voter suppression is a problem, believe that the US makes it “too easy to vote,” believe that voter fraud is rampant, and support measures to disenfranchise individuals who could not pass a basic civics test or who committed certain crimes. Interactions show Christian nationalism’s influence is particularly strong among men across most outcomes and, regarding voter suppression, whites compared to Blacks. We argue Christian nationalism seeks to institutionalize founding ideals in which civic participation is rooted in hierarchies, being restricted to a “worthy” few. Appeals to America’s religious heritage thus facilitate stratifying America’s citizenry and justifying restricting participation to preserve dominance.

The 2019 Afghan Presidential Election: An Assessment of Problematic Processes and Results

This article assesses Afghanistan's Presidential Election of 2019. Analyzing official data from the Afghan Independent Election Commission (IEC), it examines voting patterns at both the national and provincial levels and compares these results with those of past elections. It draws on statistical methods to evaluate Afghan electoral procedures, focusing in particular on the practice of ballot invalidation and voter suppression as well as the role of ethno-linguistic voting blocs. The analysis reveals highly unusual voting patterns and other dynamics that point to significant irregularities and fraud. The article concludes with a number of recommendations for future Afghan elections.

The Psychological Toll of the Culture Wars: Perceptions of Asymmetric Intergroup Conflict and Support for Counternormative Political Action

In a series of 14 studies (total N = 9,684), we examine how the (perceived) intergroup dynamics of the “culture wars” differentially impact conservatives’ and liberals’ political cognition and behavior. Past work has shown that both liberals and conservatives perceive a strong conflict with the opposing ideological group, and seek to advance their group’s relative position within that conflict. However, our findings show that people–both liberals and conservatives alike–generally perceive that liberals have the upper hand in this conflict: People see society as becoming more liberal over time, and believe that the number of political conservatives is dwindling. This gives rise to a sense of existential threat among conservatives, who express greater concern about the continued existence of their ideological ingroup. Our findings also suggest that this sense of threat, in turn, motivates greater support for counternormative and extreme political actions (e.g., voter suppression, censoring the media, prohibiting free protest) to protect one’s political group “by any means necessary.”

The Suppressive Impacts of Voter Identification Requirements

Political observers argue that the United States is in a contemporary era of voter suppression. We study one mechanism that may limit voter participation, the requirement to show identification documents at the polls—voter ID policy. Voting rights advocates have raised concerns about disparate impacts of voter restrictions on racial minorities. However, past studies have reported conflicting results. Analyzing nationally representative data from the Current Population Survey across nine election years, we show that voter ID policies, and especially “strict photo ID policies,” have a suppressive effect on participation. Voter ID requirements can reduce the probability of self-reported voting by as much as four percentage points, enough to swing a national election. While we found suppressive effects of ID policies for all racial groups, we show that Latino citizens face disproportionately negative suppressive effects of strict ID policies.