Matthias Fatke

Empirical insights on the attitudinal correlates of direct democracy are inconclusive. On the one hand, direct democracy bears a conceptual resemblance with populist ideas. On the other hand, participatory democrats advocate the use of direct democracy precisely on grounds that it promises to educate citizens. This paper complements tests of argume...

Studying the so-called refugee crisis in Germany, this article asks about the effectiveness of crisis management by a large number of local administrations, each acting upon the same crisis impulse of a high number of asylum seekers who entered the country in 2015 and 2016. Instead of theorizing the exact administrative design features fit for an e...

This article analyses whether and how the persistent positive relationship between socioeconomic status and political participation can be moderated by institutional design. Hopes to boost turnout rates of socially disadvantaged citizens often rest upon the introduction of participatory institutions. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Alexis de Tocqueville and...

Do those who feel left behind express more distrust of politics? Or does political trust serve as a palliative as the disadvantaged become more trusting? We argue that the relationship between social status and political trust depends on the context of economic inequality. Whereas in contexts of low inequality self-interest based mechanisms are mos...

Power law distributions have a certain appeal to researchers, not least because they often insinuate a general empirical law. Hence, searching for them in data generated by social and political processes has become popular. In the political science literature, however, power law behavior has rarely been assessed rigorously. Relying mainly on qualit...

Over the last several years, Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) have become an indispensable part of election campaigns in many countries. VAAs are designed to increase the political sophistication of citizens. In this paper we test whether these tools can accomplish this mission. Resorting to self-generated panel data for the 2014 European Election...

Existing research on party behaviour has largely focused on the drivers of issue salience in direct party communication. However, less is known about party‒issue linkages in election campaigns covered by the mass media, from which most voters get their information about party positions. Against this background, this article explores how two importa...

Being at the center of social capital, voluntary associations are generally thought to play a crucial role for the functioning of civil society and democracy. Several studies, however, cast doubt on the contention that associations are the foundation of generalized trust. Our study wishes to provide new insights: first by aggregating aspects of ass...

Recent years have witnessed striking successes of populist movements. Yet, while populism on the supply side is fairly well studied, we know surprisingly little about individuals who hold populist views. This article attempts to shed light on how populist attitudes are shaped on the demand side by taking a person's personality structure into accoun...

Civil wars entail many harmful consequences for the population beyond physical injuries and casualties. Although recent research has pointed out the importance of psychological distress, it must not be overlooked that not only immediate experiences from civil wars can cause such distress, but also the processes transforming social networks. In this...

Immigration has become a hot topic in West European politics. The factors responsible for the intensification of political conflict on this issue are a matter of considerable controversy. This holds in particular for the role of socio-economic factors and of radical right populist parties. This article explores the politicization of immigration iss...

Inequality poses one of the biggest challenges of our time. It is not self-correcting in the sense that citizens demand more redistributive measures in light of rising inequality, which recent studies suggest may be due to the fact that citizens’ perceptions of inequality diverge from objective levels. Moreover, it is not the latter, but the former...

Am 20. April 2018 kamen Expert*innen aus Wissenschaft und Praxis in Konstanz zusammen, um sich über ihre Erfahrungen und zentrale Lehren aus der sogenannten „Flüchtlingskrise“ auszutauschen, sowie methodische Fragen in diesem Forschungsbereich zu diskutieren. Der Workshop bildete zugleich den Auftakt für das neue Forschungsprojekt „Entstehung und g...

This paper offers a first conceptual step towards measuring what effect variation of administrative action in crisis management has on societal resilience during times of crisis. Building on previous work, we see the ability of administrations to moderate the (perceived) legitimacy of their actions in crisis management as the main mechanism for suc...

Der Beitrag behandelt die Reformmaßnahmen zur Ausweitung der Bürgerbeteiligung in Baden-Württemberg, die unter der grün-roten Regierung erfolgten. Vor dem Hintergrund des angestrebten Politikwechsels hin zu einer „Politik des Gehörtwerdens“ untersucht der Beitrag erstens, welche konkreten Maßnahmen getroffen wurden und wie diese zu bewerten sind, w...

This article studies invalid voting, which has received very little attention so far, given the broad interest and substantial relevance of voting behaviour research. Existing evidence is mostly limited to rather specific and hardly representative countries. Yet, the extent of invalid ballots is not negligible. Despite undemanding electoral rules,...

Is the success of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) a protest phenomenon or the mobilization of a political potential? We test both hypotheses on the grounds of the German National Election Study 2013. The analysis reveals that disenchantment with party politics is indeed relatively high among the AfD voters. However, they also hold homogenous...

This article presents the first assessment of how the five-factor model of personality and political ideology are associated across the world. Personality traits become more and more important in the study of political behavior. And the relationship with ideology virtually parallels the history of this line of research. Yet, many existing studies a...

This article studies political participation in the context of decentralisation in Europe. Recent secession attempts demonstrate how the demand for decentralisation energises citizens. Yet the fact that decentralised institutions, initially, were endorsed to increase citizens’ participation is often neglected. In order to test this contention empir...

Why do electoral laws prohibit political advertisement right where voters cast their ballots? Apparently, it is assumed that the deliberate and intentional decision of voters can be swayed at the last minute, thereby compromising free and fair elections. While traditional approaches to electoral behaviour typically fail to recognise such influences...

Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Zusammensetzung der Nichtwählerschaft bei den Schweizer Parlamentswahlen 2011. Der weit verbreiteten Auffassung, bei Nichtwählern handelte es sich um eine einheitliche, monolithische Gruppe, werden zunächst theoretisch aus dem Civic Voluntarism Model hergeleitete Kategorien gegenübergestellt. Ferner wird auf Grundlage...

Why do electoral laws prohibit political advertisement right where voters cast their ballots? Apparently, it is assumed that the deliberate and intentional decision of voters can be swayed at the last minute, thereby compromising free and fair elections. While traditional approaches to electoral behaviour typically fail to recognise such influences...

This paper analyses the moderating effect of direct democracy on the relationship between socioeconomic status and electoral participation. A sceptical position holds that direct democracy increases social bias in the electorate as issues are too complex and demanding. Participatory democrats in contrast invoke an educative effect of direct democra...

This article presents the first investigation of whether and how party identification is influenced by direct democratic institutions. The concept of party identification is of central interest to political science. Despite declining partisan attachment and increasing dealignment among voters, little systematic evidence exists as to which factors i...

This study investigates the relationship between direct democracy and political trust. We suggest a solution to the controversy in research centering on positive versus negative effects of direct democracy by analytically differentiating between the availability of direct democratic rights and the actual use of those rights. Theoretically, greater...

This paper presents the first investigation of whether direct democracy supplements or undermines the attendance of demonstrations as a form of protest behavior. A first approach assumes that direct democracy is associated with fewer protests, as they function as a valve that integrates voters’ opinions, preferences, and emotions into the political...