A key tenet of representative democracy is that politicians' discourse and policies should follow voters' preferences. In the median voter theorem, this outcome emerges as candidates strategically adjust their platform to get closer to their opponent. Despite its importance in political economy,...

Dieses Papier analysiert die kurzfristigen Aktienkursreaktionen auf den Ausgang von 91 nationalen Parlamentswahlen innerhalb der EU. Die Bedeutung verschiedener unternehmensspezifischer Merkmale für die Kursreaktion hängt mitunter davon ab, ob die gewählten Parteien relativ proeuropäisch...

Vereinbaren nationale Regierungen internationale Abkommen und Verträge, haben sie ein Selbstbindungsproblem: Sie sagen ihren Regierungspartnern aus anderen Ländern zu, dass sich ihr Heimatland in der Zukunft an heute vereinbarte internationale Abkommen und Verträge halten wird. Doch wissen...

The present paper draws the attention of political scientists towards the participation of the European Parliament in EU legislation making on migration and in the EU management of the migration crisis of the last seven years. The paper aims at knowing whether and, in the positive case, why the...

The last few decades witnessed a dramatic change in public opinion towards gay people. This paper studies the hypothesis that the AIDS epidemic was a shock that changed the incentive to "come out" and that the ensuing process of mobilization and endogenous political process led to cultural...

This paper investigates the determinants of political polarization, a phenomenon of increasing relevance in Western democracies. How much of polarization is driven by divergence in the ideologies of politicians? How much is instead the result of changes in the capacity of parties to control...

The relationship between votes and seats in the legislature lies at the heart of democratic governance. However, there has been little previous work on the downstream effects of partisan gerrymandering on the health of political parties. In this study, we conduct a comprehensive examination of...