The process of political socialisation of adolescents includes more than the acquisition of knowledge about society, citizenship and the political system. In a democracy, citizens are expected to participate actively in the political process. Active participation, however, requires citizens to believe in their own ability to influence the course of politics, in other words, to feel politically ...

Recent literature suggests that electoral budget cycles are a phenomenon of new rather than established democracies. What part of the democratization process explains the amelioration of the political budget cycle? We argue the answer lies (in part) in the development of a strong party system. We extend the classic Rogoff-Siebert model to show that political budget cycles are possible in a legi...

Previous research suggests that several individual and cultural level attitudes, cognitions, and societal structures may have evolved to mitigate the pathogen threats posed by intergroup interactions. It has been suggested that these anti-pathogen defenses are at the root of conservative political ideology. Here, we test a hypothesis that political conservatism functions as a pathogen-avoidance...

The output side of the political system provides services for citizens and societies. It is on the output side daily interaction among citizens and public administration take place and is maintained. This is, indeed, a crucial aspect of daily life for most citizens and their interpretation of a good life, not at least in mature welfare states with extensive provision of public social services a...

I investigate political uncertainty as a source of regulatory risk. Political parties have incentives to reduce regulatory risk actively through institutionalizing politically independent regulatory agencies. Political parties benefit from fully eliminating regulatory risk when political divergence is small or electoral uncertainty is appropriately skewed. In general, the political system allow...