Free resources for researching and teaching about democracy and the upcoming elections
Democracy | Elections | Teaching about politics | International politics
In an era of mis- and disinformation, evidence-based research and critical thinking skills are essential for understanding our complex political landscape. This collection of freely accessible social and behavioral science-based resources will support both classroom-based and scholarly discussions surrounding the upcoming elections. As we approach a pivotal moment in history, with over 60 national elections set to take place in 2024, this unprecedented wave of democratic engagement underscores the importance of informed discourse.
Democracy
Covering topics such as economic development, media influence, artificial intelligence, and voting systems, these articles can help students, educators, policymakers, researchers, and engaged citizens seeking a deeper understanding of democracy’s role in shaping a better world.
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Scotus Rewriting the History of Race in America
Robert L. Nelson discusses the racial ideology of a conservative-majority court.
This study evaluates the historical expansion of crime policy collaboration networks, examining how lawmakers collaborate on solutions to urgent issues in the presence of conflicts.
Presidential Transitions and Interests Group Participation in the Notice and Comment Process
This study explores the notice-and-comment process, a core feature of U.S. administrative practice, analyzing public comments to determine how features of the political environment affect the commentator pool.
This study examines how perceptions of distributive justice are affected by the racial diversity of government employees.
This paper examines the association between public service motivation and trust in government across the federal, state, and local levels of government in the United States.
Reanalysing the link between democracy and economic development
The article’s reanalysis using comprehensive data from 1789 to 2019 demonstrates that democracy has a significant long-term positive impact on economic prosperity.
The Crisis of American Democracy in Historical Context
American democracy is currently facing a convergence of four major threats which historically have individually contributed to periods of democratic instability.
Entrepreneurship and Democracy: A Complex Relationship
While democracy and entrepreneurship often have a negative correlation, there is support for the idea that entrepreneurs in developed economies exhibit more democratic behaviors.
Can Teacher Education Save Democracy?
How might teacher educators ensure that teachers are prepared to foster education that will sustain and strengthen democratic norms?
Far-right populism in alt-tech: A challenge for democracy?
The study contributes to the ongoing discussion on the impact of far-right populism on democracy and the role of alt-tech social media as an enabling platform for such ideologies.
How to Save Britain’s Parliamentary Democracy
With public trust in British democracy at an all time low, former MPs Nick Harvey and Paul Tyler examine the state of ‘the mother of democracies’ and offer suggestions for how it could be restored to health.
Argues that urbanisation unsettles seemingly fixed boundaries between the state and society.
On the Egalitarian Value of Electoral Democracy
Calls for a reinterpretation of electoral competition as an important element of an egalitarian theory of democracy.
The changing UK prime ministership from an institutional perspective
This article explores the scope and limitation of the power of the UK prime minister from an institutional perspective.
Considers how new sources of news and information might fill contemporary information needs and how media policy could help create a more equitable, tolerant, and just multiracial democracy.
Artificial Intelligence and Democracy: A Conceptual Framework
Amongst fears and enthusiasm, this article provides a framework for a more focused and productive analysis and discussion of AI’s likely impact on one specific social field: democracy.
How Do We Need to Reform our Political System to Tackle the UK’s Challenges?’
Britain’s political system is deeply flawed and requires widespread reform, writes sixth form student Isaac Stark.
The geopolitics of democracy: The US against Russia and China
China’s model of governance, a mixture of political authoritarianism and economic capitalism, has directly challenged the quality and credibility of American democracy.
Null effects of social media ads on voter registration: Three digital field experiments
Are digital campaigns effective in registering voters in the UK?
It’s a rich man’s world: How class and glass ceilings intersect for UK parliamentary candidates
Why is politics dominated by wealthy men, and how do gendered and class barriers to running for office intersect?
Trends on Democratic Erosion: The Role Of Agency And Sequencing
This article focuses on two main features of democratic erosion - agency and incrementality - and suggests a model for the sequencing of democratic erosion.
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Changing Media Landscape: Does it serve the public interest and democracy?
As the news ecosystem rapidly evolves, experts are debating how well it serves the public interest and a healthy democracy.
Elections
Readers will explore guides to elections, voting laws, and how historical cases of alleged election fraud may shape the 2024 election results. The collection also sheds light on the growing concern of disinformation campaigns, including the influence of social media on voter perception, and provides a historical overview of U.S. elections.
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Understanding General Election '24 in 10 articles
The Political Studies Association and Sage have brought together 10 articles from across the PSA’s four journals and one magazine to help make sense of recent campaigns.
Core Beliefs Disruption in the Context of an Election: Implications for Subjective Well-Being
This study examines how core beliefs can be disrupted by elections and the implications this disruption might have for well-being.
Combatting Election Stress: Anticipatory Coping and Daily Self-Reported Physical Health
This study examines the within-person relationship between forecasting election-related stress and self-reported physical health.
This paper investigates the veracity of real-life high-stakes verbal messages in the 2020 U.S. Presidential election debates.
Understanding General Election '24 in 15 articles
The Political Studies Association (PSA) has brought together 15 of the most insightful articles from across the PSA’s four journals, Political Studies, Political Studies Review, The British Journal of Politics & International Relations, and Politics, and also the PSA's colour magazine, Political Insight.
Most scholarship has focused on single-election studies in the United States, whereas less is known about how campaigns go on the attack in the UK, and few compare two elections.
Tactical Voting and Electoral Pacts in the 2019 UK General Election
The Brexit cleavage continued to define politics in the 2019 general election, posing a challenge for parties and voters on each side of the debate: how to coordinate in favour of their side in each seat.
Politics of the United Kingdom General Elections
A collection of resources from Political Studies featuring Open Access articles.
Delayed shock? How Brexit conditioned campaign effects in British general elections
This article analyses the impact of the electoral shock of the UK’s 2016 referendum on EU membership on campaign effects in the subsequent elections of 2017 and 2019.
The Public Funding of Election Administration: Evidence from a British General Election
The extent to which election administration is funded can reveal government priorities towards democratic rights, yet little is known of this aspect of public administration.
This article aims to enhance understanding of the role of place in urban leadership by examining the way leadership changed significantly following the introduction of mayoral governance into a UK city.
Considering the relationship between social platforms and the media, this article reveals how platforms affect journalists’ ability to advance their democratic goals.
Steven Fielding takes a look at representations of British general elections in fictions – and finds that on the page and on screen depictions often influence how voters view real world politics.
The response of British government to post-Brexit constitutional tensions has been uncertain, and at times downright contradictory.
This article uses aggregate-level data covering UK general elections between 1987 and 2010 to examine electoral impact of MP’s retirement.
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Fair Elections and Democracy: Research about Voting
Links to a variety of journal articles covering topics such as corruption, voting behavior, vote-by-mail policies, and more.
Researchers are awarded grants to study Facebook data and its influence on elections
A discussion of Social Science One, devised to allow academic researchers access to the huge amounts of data generated by private industry, including Facebook data, with links to further reading.
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Election fraud report: Will doubts about electoral integrity impair the 2024 election?:
To guard against possible fraud, lawyers and politicians are on the lookout for actions that might cast doubt on the 2024 victors.
The Electoral College: Should it be replaced?
18 states and the District of Columbia have pledged to award their Electoral College votes to the winner of the national popular vote in presidential elections.
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The Realities of Political Advertisements in the United States
This case study examines what politicians can and cannot legally say in political advertisements, teaching students how to analyze strategic messaging.
Teaching about politics
Find webinars, videos, and blogs designed to support and enhance teaching on a range of topics from domestic politics to international relations. These resources cover suggestions for engaging students with political analysis, theories, and statistics, and how to integrate these perspectives into curriculum.
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Making Statistics Accessible and Relevant in Politics and IR
Matthew Loveless, author of statistics textbook, Political Analysis, discusses the best ways to engage your students with political analysis and stats.
Teaching students to do – and engage more effectively with – International Relations Theory
Hubert Zimmermann and Alex Burkhardt from Philipps-University Marburg, illustrate how educators can cultivate a class where theories are treated as indispensable tools to develop a critical eye in the ambiguous and complex realm of international politics.
How can we teach the politics of development—when everything about development is political?
University of Birmingham’s Claire McLoughlin, Nicholas Cheeseman, David Hudson, and Sameen Ali discuss how every aspect of development is intertwined with politics, shaping the distribution of resources, authority, rights, and freedoms.
Tips for teaching World Politics
International Relations lecturers and authors Professor Peter Hough and Dr Bruce Pilbeam provide insights and advice on how to really engage your undergraduate students with IR theory. Learn more about their book, World Politics: International Relations and Globalisation in the 21st Century.
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Civic Education in a Time of Democratic Crisis:
The 2022 NAEP Civics assessment results show a persistently low level of civics knowledge – a warning sign that the younger generation is not adequately prepared for these complex challenges.
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A resource site designed to help instructors get inspiration and activities for lectures on American Government or International Relations.
International politics
Explore journal articles, blogs, and webinars offering insights into the politics of different systems across the globe. Covering geographies such as India, Slovenia, Russia, Ethiopia, and more, the articles include themes of identity, othering, and the function of democracy globally.
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Race, Religion, and the Echoes of Status Insecurity in US Foreign Policy
This paper examines the racial and religious historical influences on U.S. ontological security in a time of perceived hegemonic decline.
Electoral Politics Around the World
Get up to speed on procedural, societal, economic, and political issues likely to play a role during some of the many elections happening around the globe in 2024.
Do internet and mobile usage affect the democracy-economic growth nexus in Africa?
This study examines the impact of internet and mobile usage on the democracy-economic growth relationship in 26 African economies over the period of 2000–2020.
Party System Change and Challenges to Democracy in Slovenia
The case study of Slovenia reveals that dynamic changes in the party system and consolidation of democracy may also be feasible in the post-socialist context.
A Crisis of Social Democracy in Europe? An Answer from the Citizens’ Perspective
This article analyses the public support for the social model of democracy by focusing on the gap between what citizens expect democracy to deliver in the social realm and how they evaluate its achievement in practice.
The reverberations of British Brexit politics abroad
This article analyzes how key events in British Brexit politics affected attitudes towards the European Union in other European countries.
International functionalism and democracy
This article examines David Mitrany’s international functionalism and its relationship with democracy.
Unionist unity? Strategic voting at Scottish parliamentary elections
This paper finds that many unionist voters have put aside left-right rivalries to support fellow unionist candidates on the constituency ballot.
Authoritarianism and Immigration Attitudes in the UK
This article draws on theories of intergroup threat to examine the effect of “right-wing authoritarianism” on immigration attitudes in the UK.
Patterns of Global Democracy Promotion: Centrality in DINGO Networks, 1981–2015
Democracy-promoting international nongovernmental organizations (DINGOs) remain understudied, which this article seeks to help change.
Access to social rights is crucial to refugee settlement and integration, and a whole range of social policy measures determine the limits on those rights.
This article concentrates on the impact of the individual on the office, considering first the agent-centred approaches to prime ministerial study and applying the interactive model of leadership capital to the contemporary UK premiership.
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World Politics in the 21st Century: The New Cold War?
Like the Cold War, there is great tension between Russia and the West today, exacerbated by the challenges of globalisation.
Exploring Identity and Politics: Northeast India's Muslim “Othering”
Why does the “othering” of Muslims continue to be a salient political issue in a secular country like India?
Laura von Allwörden discusses the U.S. contestation of the Paris Agreement in 2017, exploring how a second Trump presidency could affect multilateralism.
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How do identities shape UK Politics? And how can we engage today's students more effectively?
Professors Joanie Willett of Exeter University and Arianna Giovannini of University of Urbino discuss the role of identities in shaping UK politics, examining how identities can catalyse change, and the ways in which the politics of territorial identity can shape political institutions. Learn more about their book, An Introduction to UK Politics: Place, Pluralism, and Identities.
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International Relations: Theories in Action
Free chapter available. Not presupposing any prior knowledge, this introduction equips uses theories as adaptable tools to tackle complex global issues.
The Politics of Policymaking: An Introduction
Free chapter available. Explains how policymaking works: from the emergence of policy ideas to deciding between cutting-edge solutions, from evaluating policies to improving policymaking practices, using examples from around the world.
Social Science Space, a Sage-supported community site, has also curated free-to-access content on U.S. and U.K. elections from across the community featuring blogs, webinars, and podcasts.
