Research

We provide an overview of visualization in political science. To trace how visualization practices have evolved, we sampled the first 25 articles from every fifth volume of the American Political Science Review (APSR), beginning with Volume 1 in 1906. This historical sample captures over a century of trends in the frequency, purpose, and form of visualizations. To examine a broader cross-section of the field, we also analyze over 200 articles from recent issues of eight leading political science journals, including both general and subfield-specific ones. For each article, we coded every included visualization using the same procedure as in the APSR sample, assigning each a primary purpose and a specific form based on a typology of about 100 distinct types. The resulting dataset—comparing roughly 1,500 visualizations—allows us to assess both long-term changes and the current state of visualization in political science, and to compare usage patterns across journals and subfields.

Concurrent appointment of the village head and village party leader, known as the “One-Shoulder” policy, is essential for strengthening party leadership at the grassroots level. However, the implementation of this policy is problematic in villages with divided elite structures. When County A intended to implement the “One-Shoulder” policy in the 16 villages under its jurisdiction, Village S became the only village unable to implement it. Neither the former village chief nor the village party secretary was willing to give up their positions to the other. In order to break this deadlock, the county-level party organization started from two aspects to build consensus and bridge the differences between village elites. On the one hand, the grassroots party committee utilized the cadre work method to build candidate consensus among village elites. On the other hand, the mass line work method was used to build electoral consensus among villagers. As can be seen from this case, grassroots party organizations have played a crucial role in the effective implementation of central policies in rural areas by integrating differences and forming consensus.

What kind of petitions are more likely to get active responsiveness from the local government? Using empirical data on petitions in city A, this study attempts to answer this question. It is found that the intensity of petitions, operationalized as petition size and petition frequency, is positively correlated with government responsiveness. Other features of petitions, including the socioeconomic attributes of the petitioners and the petition demands, have no statistical relationship with government responsiveness. We further operationalize government responsiveness into two sequential types, the immediate response and the final response. Controlling for the features of petitions and petitioners, it is found that immediate response significantly affects the final response. These findings update empirical evidence to scholarly understanding of petition politics in contemporary China.

Citizens frequently judge the extent of corruption among political elites despite having little opportunity to observe it directly. Existing research shows that public perceptions are closely tied to everyday experiences of petty corruption but offers limited explanation for how citizens perceive grand corruption occurring at the highest levels of government. This article argues that public perceptions of hidden grand corruption are shaped through opinion leadership: elites provide informational cues that allow citizens to form judgments about grand corruption they cannot directly observe. Using Eurobarometer surveys covering 28 European countries from 2005 to 2022, combined with expert-based corruption measures, this article distinguishes between grand and petty corruption on both the perception and observed dimensions. The analyses show that citizens’ perceptions and experiences correspond closely to petty corruption but not to grand corruption, whereas elites’ assessments track both forms. Error correction models further indicate that public perceptions of grand corruption adjust toward elite assessments in both the short run and the long run, even after accounting for observed corruption. These findings suggest that agreement between elite and public corruption perceptions reflects informational dependence rather than shared observation, extending theories of opinion leadership to a domain where citizens cannot directly observe the object of political judgment.

Natural disasters impose growing social and economic costs, yet they receive little attention in election campaigns. Why do some political parties prioritize disaster preparedness and response while others do not? Using 843 election manifestos from 31 OECD democracies between 2010 and 2025, this study shows that only two party families consistently devote attention to disasters: green and agrarian parties. They do so for very different reasons. Green parties discuss disasters as environmental problems and attention is unrelated to recent disaster experience. Agrarian parties instead emphasize disasters when their constituencies have recently been affected, focusing on compensation and relief for rural communities. These findings show that similar issue attention can arise from different motivations: ideological commitments in one case, and constituency interests in the other. This work shows that disaster preparedness can enter democratic politics through multiple pathways, though it has failed to enter most party manifestos despite high profile disasters.

How do migration and remittance patterns influence the relationship between disasters and intrastate conflicts? Existing literature focuses on how disaster migration increases social tension and can lead to violent conflict, but it rarely examines the role of labor migration and diaspora networks in building disaster resilience. We argue that countries whose citizens can rely on migrant remittances are less likely to experience conflict because disaster victims and affected populations can rely on remittance support from parts of their social networks that did not experience the disaster. We expect that higher inflows of remittances mitigate the adverse effects of hazards (e.g., displacement), reduce post-disaster grievances, increase opportunity costs for rebellion, and lower the likelihood of armed conflicts. We test our theory by examining global patterns using a cross-sectional time series dataset of disasters and international remittances (1970-2021) and find that armed conflict risks after disasters are lower in countries that receive more remittances. We find similar results leveraging within-country variation with analyses of domestic and international remittances and political violence across districts in Peru (2004-2022). Our cross-national and Peruvian empirical results show the important role of migrant networks in resilience in the face of disasters.

Informal economic behavior at the grassroots level is both concealed and widespread, yet its social and political consequences, and the mechanisms behind them, remain poorly understood. Drawing on a nationally representative survey, this study measures citizens’ corruption experience by combining a list experiment with direct questioning in order to correct for social desirability bias. It examines how such experience shapes political attitudes. The results indicate that the more corruption citizens experience, the lower their satisfaction with government performance and their trust in government at all levels and in public sector institutions. Although the behavior occurs locally, the damage to system-wide trust is especially pronounced. This effect operates mainly through a weakening of political efficacy. Moreover, the stronger citizens’ perception of central government integrity, the more negative the consequences of their corruption experience. These findings underscore the practical significance of curbing petty corruption, and suggest that perceived integrity at the centre amplifies, rather than offsets, the political damage done locally.