Since the global financial crisis of 2007–2009 (or later), economic and political liberalism has been in retreat globally. The rise of populist alternatives to mainstream parties, promising radical change and pointing fingers at corrupt elites, has infected not only emerging markets but also developed economies. The seeming lack of response to economic decline, with “solutions” rooted in old-fashioned Keynesian policies and the promise of cheap money, has widened economic inequality and generated socio-political unrest.

On top of all of this came the COVID-19 pandemic, emerging from an authoritarian nation (who has been reticent to let investigators access to data regarding the first days of the pandemic); most importantly, massive prohibitions on economic activity (colloquially called “lockdowns”) and on freedom of movement and speech were embraced by governments in order to fight the disease. This thematic issue examines the decline in political and economic freedom since the global financial crisis and especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, exploring how authoritarian governance and economics have apparently come back into vogue. Authors are encouraged to submit papers dealing, inter alia, with the following themes:

• The failure of political elites to deal with crisis
• Populism and its left-wing policy prescriptions
• Political and economic resilience/institutions as complex systems
• Specific COVID-19 responses and how they have enabled authoritarianism
• Comparative studies of earlier waves of authoritarianism
• The Russian invasion of Ukraine as a consequence of perceived or real “Western weakness”
• The role of China in the pandemic and its response
• Economic policies in the post-global financial crisis world
• The revival of industrial policies and their danger for global growth
• Trade protectionism and killing the goose that laid the golden egg
• Electoral reforms in democracies and their effects on freedom
• Specific political actors and their agendas
• Institutional changes and deterioration in developed economies
• Rollback of property rights globally
• Financialization as a consequence of government policy
• Authoritarian regionalism and associations
• Mis- and disinformation and the weaponization of censorship/media freedom in general
• Preferred government narratives and their opposition to reality
• Business and government partnerships against society
• Privacy, surveillance, and mandates

Modern democracies are imbued with many formal and informal conceptualizations about the sorts of ethical rules and norms that govern individual leaders and groups of leaders. Ethical leadership is thought to be important for—and correlated with—public trust. Trust is a foundational element of modern governance. However, ethical norms are often violated in practice or conflict with other “rules” of governance. Securing public trust, in practice, is quite elusive. Scholars disagree as to how and why public trust may be solidified (or eroded), and also debate the causative role of leadership in creating such trust. Governments often pursue trust-building policies without much reassurance or firm empirical evidence these efforts will succeed. For example, the Open Government initiative, which spans OECD countries, aims to increase governmental transparency for the benefit of citizens. Yet, open government has the potential to both increase and decrease public trust in a democracy. In short, there is much need for deeper research from both the empirical and theoretical perspectives into the connections between and among the interplay of ethics, democracy, and political leadership.
This thematic issue gathers together the latest research on ethics, trust, and democracy from a group of academic specialists, government partners, and the holders of five prestigious research chairs.

The issue will pose some broad questions to help focus the individual author's contributions. Examples of key questions include: What are the necessary and essential ethical parameters that ought to inform how democratic leadership is exercised? Does populism enhance or erode ethics and public trust in democracies? Does a leader’s rhetoric about ethical government help to increase trust in a democratic government? How is democratization informed by the practice of ethical leadership?

In sum, this thematic issue will gather together new research on ethics, democracy, and leadership at an opportune time. The content will feature a mixture of theoretical and empirical approaches. Its content and arguments will appeal to academic researchers as well as policy specialists, think tanks, and government partners.

Status is a core concept of the traditional International Relations (IR) canon and our understanding of status-seeking has improved especially regarding what types of status hierarchies exist and how both established and rising powers “seek” status competitively. Yet, important gaps remain. First, status needs to be understood as a daily foreign policy practice, which conventional analyses tend to overlook in favour of more conventional security or political economy perspectives. Second, many analyses have nevertheless remained conspicuously West-centric, both geographically, but also conceptually, i.e., in terms of what matters politically. They also remain, for the most part, state-centric. These omissions are at odds with attempts to make the IR more global, inclusive, and analytically diverse. The articles selected for this thematic issue shall attempt to address this challenge.

Contributions shall include research on status ambitions and anxieties by non-traditional actors, especially state actors in the Global South beyond the traditional so-called “rising powers,” but also a range of non-state actors, including global cities, resistance movements, or rebel groups. This broadening of seekers of status allows for a discussion, not just of a variety of actors, but also of novel conceptual and theoretical developments in the status literature at the intersection between domestic politics and global status-seeking.

Furthermore, the thematic issue will cover the potential variability of status politics across different issue areas, from environmental to nuclear politics, from the study of security policies to the global political economy of status-seeking. Lastly, one of the core, overarching ambitions of the thematic issue is to show that thinking about status is far from being an intellectual effort alone, but that a better understanding of the motive, strategies, and consequences of status politics has clear relevance for global cooperation. For instance, when it comes to the adjustment of mutual expectations as a basis for trust, effective governance, and reliability in bilateral and multilateral relations.

The last decades brought the rise of illiberalism: the tacit or explicit negation of the values that underpinned post-war democratic structures. The illiberal camp now includes a relatively wide circle of citizens, parties, social movements, and governments. It is no longer possible to treat this phenomenon as marginal, confined to maverick opposition actors.

This thematic issue constitutes a complex take on European illiberalism. It investigates the behavior of illiberal actors in government, the dissemination of illiberal ideas, and the crystallization of attitudes and belief systems that help the advances of illiberal politics. As far as the scrutinized policies are concerned, the thematic issue intends to focus on fields that are less mapped in this context, such as social policy, education and culture, foreign policy, environment, etc.

The thematic issue has the ambition to innovate both in concept-building and empirical methods. As far as the conceptual work is concerned, the authors are asked to relate phenomena such as populism, illiberalism, authoritarianism, radical right, and social dominance orientation to each other, making steps towards the development of an up-to-date vocabulary and theoretical framework.

This issue is planned to consist of four sections: civil society, discourse through quantitative text analysis, policy, and public opinion. As far as methods are concerned, we have a special interest in employing the latest methods in quantitative textual analysis. Qualitative text analyses are also welcome, primarily employed to identify the intentions behind policy documents. To investigate the mobilization of citizens both against and in defense of liberal democracy participant observation and survey experiments are recommended. The issue of pan-European cooperation with illiberal forces will be studied with the help of social network analysis and content analysis. Finally, the intersection of collective memories and illiberal attitudes, and the receptiveness of public opinion to illiberal politics are revealed with the help of survey data.

In today’s digitalized world, data have evolved into not only an economic resource but a pivotal cornerstone for safeguarding personal privacy, human rights, national sovereignty, and security interests. Given its importance, there has been a growing consensus on the need for establishing global regimes for governing data. Nevertheless, due to varying economic, political, and ideological perspectives on the internet, major digital powers are adopting divergent approaches to data collection, storage, and transfer, each competing for leadership roles in this field. Consequently, data governance has emerged as a new arena for geostrategic competition and political rivalry, which has been further exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic and the ongoing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This is illustrated by examples such as the EU imposing fines on the US’s tech giants, China's implementation of new data privacy and security laws with stringent cross-border clearance requirements for “sensitive” data, the US imposing restrictions on Chinese digital firms on national security grounds, India excluding Chinese apps, and Russia instituting a national internet.

Against this backdrop, this thematic issue seeks to examine data and transnational data governance from a geopolitical perspective. It seeks contributions speaking to topics such as:

What are the geopolitical implications of data?

What factors have been driving the geopolitical turn in data and transnational data governance?

Which prominent digital powers are actively pursuing leadership roles in the field of data governance, and to what extent do their actions reflect geopolitical considerations?

What roles do non-government actors, including private actors, civil society, and international organizations, play in the landscape of global cyber governance?

The proposed thematic issue will address the unequal participation of youth, immigrants, and ethnic minorities from an interdisciplinary perspective. Due to their small share in the population and the fact that many are barred from voting, they do not constitute a pertinent political constituency and are often not considered relevant subjects for academic research on political behavior, having received little attention in this area. We know that these groups usually have lower turnout rates than the general population, but determinants and correlates are still largely unknown. This is problematic because the political participation of youth and immigrants is becoming increasingly important in the context of transnational migration and demographic change. The topic is of considerable importance considering the implications for political and social life in increasingly diverse societies. This is evident, for example, in recurring discussions about lowering the voting age and extending the right to vote to foreigners. As the proportion of people with a migration background among young people increases, the study of the intersection of both groups gains relevance, as they constitute important parts of future societies and, specifically, electorates.

Contributions to this thematic issue will focus on the political attitudes or behavior of youth, ethnic minorities, immigrants (or people with a migration background), or the intersection of these groups. Contributions can analyze political attitudes (e.g., sentiment towards parties, institutional trust, or populist attitudes), (formal and informal) participation patterns, or focus on interventions to bridge the participation gap. Research that includes additional categories such as gender or social class would be of particular interest. We welcome both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Contributions may also focus on methodological issues, such as how to reach these populations for social science research.

The reasons for war are always miscellaneous, but ending wars becomes a huge challenge as, in current war events, the belligerent parties could arise new legitimations to continue or extend their warfare. This becomes evident since former opponents of war sometimes find it difficult to maintain their critical stance as soon as one of the warring parties has been identified as being exclusively responsible for the armed conflict. Moreover, aggressors, who start a war, often suggest themselves as victim countries that only use military force in response to former warlike aggression—apart from the fact that the country that first uses armed force is not necessarily an aggressor and, therefore, that the judgement of a warlike conflict can differ from the perspective of international law to a rather moral point of view.

Hence, the rough distinction between an offensive right to war and the mere legitimisation of defensive wars launched by contemporary just war theories is not convincing anymore, especially since the claim to “defend” democracy, freedom, and human rights is also (ab-)used to justify military interventions. Today, political and social research has to reflect that any clear distinction between bellicose and pacifist attitudes has become difficult and that war itself is an existential ethical or identity conflict which is often suggested as a fight between the good and the evil.

Against this background, this issue asks:

• How are wars legitimised by different political actors and societies that are directly or indirectly involved? 
• What sets off the advocacy of wars and arms supply on an individual level? 
• How do (media) discourses shape the negotiation of war and defense strategies as well as de-escalation and peace strategies? 
• What moral-ethical and legal problems arise in conflict management? 
• What influence do war dynamics have on decision-making processes? 
• How did the legitimisation of wars and the negotiation of peace processes take shape from the past to the present?

Within academia and in political practice, democracy remains a contested concept. This thematic issue focuses on the related debates, controversies, and contestations in theory, practice, and historical perspective. Special emphasis is put on the concept of liberal democracy—i.e., the form that democracy mostly takes on nowadays—that has always been contested as a concept, even today.

The term is contested in several aspects: On one hand, democratic theorists, politicians, and citizens put forward different ideas about what democratic rule implies and requires and how to interpret (liberal) democracy.

On the other hand, (liberal) democracy is currently contested and challenged both as a concept and in political practice: There are debates inside and outside parliaments and institutions about what (liberal) democracy is or is not, what are its benefits and pitfalls, and whether it is to be judged positively or not. There are political actors and movements on all sides of the political spectrum that criticize (liberal) democracy. Moreover, (liberal) democracy is challenged by autocratic politicians and states. Also, democratic deconsolidation and democratic backsliding by right-wing populist and autocratic politicians and governments destroy liberal democratic norms and institutions in areas of ideational and political influence. Finally, the war against Ukraine has repeatedly been framed as a war between an autocracy and a liberal Western European democracy. All of these points demonstrate that this concept is still widely contested today.

The parliamentary aspect of (liberal) democracy is particularly contested by the autocratic and populist actors and thinkers. This aspect, focusing on dissensus and debate and the playing with time, is, however, a major strength of (liberal) democracy, and it deserves to be presented as such by both scholars and politicians.

Against this backdrop, this thematic issue aims to bring together articles that analyse how (liberal) democracy is currently debated, contested, and conceptualized, inside and outside Europe, taking into consideration contemporary challenges (such as populism, polarization, and autocratization) and democratization beyond nation-states and the European Union. In this sense, articles are invited to discuss questions such as:

• How is (liberal) democracy defined and contested in academia, public discourses, and among political elites? How is it conceptualized and debated in various fora and by different actors?  In what way is (liberal) democracy contested, in which occasions and contexts, and how is democratic backsliding argumentatively defended?

• How are the debates and contestations contextualized, in which occasions do they occur, and are they linked to other issues or other significant concepts like representation, participation, autonomy, freedom, or power?

• What can political science and democratic theory contribute to public discourses about (liberal) democracy, its challenges, and potential reforms?

• How is democracy conceptualized in the framework of the European Union and its multilevel system—both by citizens and elites?

Environmental problems such as the climate emergency, biodiversity loss, natural resource depletion and degradation, increased pollution and waste, and the associated environmental justice concerns have spurred a vast amount of research on environmental governance covering dynamics at different levels. Within this area, research on environmental networks has shed light on the relational patterns between different entities that help explain policy and management outcomes, including successes, and failures. Research on environmental governance, spanning from mono- to polycentric, adaptive, collaborative, and transformative approaches, has increasingly adopted network perspectives to investigate structural properties in governance systems.

However, there is a lot to be learned about how politics in different environmental networks relates to the broader governance contexts and systems shaping policy and, ultimately, socio-environmental outcomes. Examining politics within environmental networks encompasses a broad array of research, including power dynamics, patterns of collaboration and conflict, framing and mobilization processes, crisis management, transboundary governance systems, and coalitional behavior. Such efforts extend to the analysis of the relational, discursive, and positional power of actors, within various forms of institutionalization, contention, and polarization.

We invite submissions that offer novel empirical evidence and theoretical insights into the political dimension of networks across diverse environmental domains. This thematic issue call extends to a wide range of political contexts, from formalized and institutional settings to grassroots and subcultural ones. We welcome submissions applying quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methodological perspectives. These include but are not limited to social and discourse network analytical perspectives. We also encourage submissions employing multi-modal and multi-level approaches for the purposes mentioned above.

As we progress into the 21st century, the role of emerging Web 3.0 technologies in governance has never been more pivotal. This thematic issue aims to analyse, first, the nuanced and multi-faceted relationship among cutting-edge technologies, like blockchain, virtual/augmented/mixed reality, generative AI, and metaverse(s), built on and enhanced by these technologies, and, secondly, their impact on contemporary models of governance. This issue will bridge inter-disciplinary approaches to offer a robust scholarly, research-based inquiry into the transformative potentials and complexities these technologies bring to paradigms of governance.

This issue focuses on how these innovative technologies can revolutionize governance by way of decentralized, secure, and data-driven systems, reshaping areas such as electoral processes and policy-making. Meanwhile, it addresses the serious challenges these technologies pose, including ethical dilemmas pertaining to data privacy, security, and the broader implications for social justice and inequality. The editors encourage submissions that not only highlight the technological advancements but also address their socio-political impacts and ethical dimensions.

The issue is structured around three main themes:

• The geopolitical dynamics in Web 3.0 Platforms: Which examines the role of technologies in redefining borders and sovereignty, and in establishing a system or framework of global governance of technology;

• Ethical issues in relation to governance of Web 3.0 Technologies: Which means examining data security and intellectual property concerns in Generative AI. This leads to the need to balance centralized and decentralized governance models, and their influence on power structures and democratic discourse;

• The social impact of Web 3.0 Technologies: The focus shall be on their effects on the digital formation of identity, social interactions, and cultural policies within the digital realm, and the role of such technologies in fostering sustainable development in healthcare, in enabling the debunking of disinformation and in education. We invite innovative and comparative insights, along with empirical research that addresses the interplay between technology and governance in our evolving world.

This thematic issue focuses on how Europe and the EU are debated, politicized, and contested. A key focus is set on the question of whether (and how) these debates and politicisations help to democratize the EU (or not).

This rationale is based on the assumption that debate is a key democratic activity, and accordingly, “debating Europe” is one of the bases for a democratic Europe and a democratic EU. The process of debating enhances the legitimacy of the EU not only as a polity but also as a policy-making process by regaining citizens’ trust in their ability to use political discussions to influence the policy-making process, including a wide range of policy actors.

These efforts are badly needed: Despite the activities of the EU and national institutions as well as intermediate institutions and actors to bring citizens closer to policymaking, research, as well as opinion surveys, diagnose a gap between what has been termed “EU elites” and EU citizens. Votes for populist, extremist, anti-EU, and anti-democrat parties and movements are on the rise throughout the EU. At the same time, the Europeanisation of politics and decision-making continues to impact and transform the national democratic systems of the member states and citizens’ everyday lives.

Can debates on Europe and the politicization of the EU help to close these gaps and democratize the EU? There are agreements and disagreements in the academic debate on EU politicization in these respects. While there is disagreement as to what extent debate on the EU (politicization) can indeed help democratize the Union, there is some agreement that this academic discussion is rather recent, since the EU, for a long time, has been considered as not much politicized. Public discourses on EU policies and EU contestation have been rare. There is also some (although not complete) agreement in the academic debate that the EU, since the 1990s, has become more politicized. The 2005 French EU referendum (which led to a “No” vote on the draft Constitutional Treaty) discourse is considered one major instance of politicization.

A crucial question in the academic debate, where contributions have shown decisive disagreement, is thus whether politicization may be beneficial for the EU (and its democratization) or detrimental (or whether the truth lies somewhere in between).

This thematic issue dives into the field opened by the puzzle raised above, focusing on the various normative and empirical linkages and interrelations of debates as a necessary basis for democracy and its consequences for politicization and democratization in the EU, in particular, and Europe, in general. The contributions can focus on the EU but also consider Europe altogether. Contributions will tackle themes, issues, and questions such as:

• Debates on the EU and Europe, via different media channels and in different fora, such as citizen debates, parliaments, and (social) media;

• Narratives and images linked to the EU and Europe;

• Politicization, contestation, and democratization via debates on Europe and the EU;

• How are Europe and the EU, and how is (liberal) democracy defined and contested in these debates? How is it conceptualized and debated in various fora and by different actors?

• In what ways and contexts are the EU and European democracies contested?

• How are the debates and contestations contextualized, in which occasions do they occur, and are they linked to other issues or other significant concepts like nation, sovereignty, citizenship, representation, participation, autonomy, freedom, or power?

• How is democracy conceptualized in the framework of the European Union and its multilevel system (both by citizens and elites)?

The European Central Bank (ECB)—like other central banks—experienced a widening of its mandate in the course of the financial crisis and the following public debt crisis, as well as under the pressure of the Covid-19 and climate change crises. Some of its activities, such as its decisions on crisis measures, had a high degree of public salience and were controversial, as evidenced by public and political protests. Other policies, such as those lined up on climate change could be possibly beneficial but venture into policy areas that are traditionally the domain of democratic institutions. Even though the credibility of the claim that monetary policy follows a narrow and transparent goal has been shaken in the EU context, the scope for democratic control over the interpretation of the extent and limits of the ECB’s mandate remains extremely narrow. Therefore, within an unchanged Treaty framework, the ECB became the institution in charge of defining the limits of its own mandate.

The last two decades have been characterized by ambivalent attitudes and positions towards the European Union among the public and political parties in member states and candidate countries. On the one hand, there were periods of euro-optimism around the accession period for many new member states or during external shocks, such as the 2008–2012 financial crisis or the 2020–2022 Covid-19 pandemic. On the other hand, the Eurosceptic voices have become stronger in more countries, either permanently like Hungary, Poland, or the UK or temporarily associated with domestic developments like in France, Italy, or Romania. Previous research examined closely the formation of such attitudes, their display, and consequences for the political systems and EU integration. However, we know little about the extent to which the opinions of the public about the EU converge with those of political parties, how the public, politicians, or parties differ in their attitudes about the EU, why a consensus or dissensus emerges at the level of the public or of political parties, and how this evolves.

This thematic issue aims to gather contributions that can address some of these gaps in the literature. It welcomes theoretical articles that discuss the origins of consensus, methodological articles that refer to the measurement of consensus, and empirical articles that analyze the dynamic and manifestation of consensus. The thematic issue encourages both single-case studies and comparative analyses and it is open to a plurality of methodological approaches (qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-methods).

The staff working in parliaments represent a highly relevant, yet significantly understudied group of actors. While political scientists have sought to understand the activities of elected representatives in parliaments, sparse case studies underscore the key role played by political staff in brokering information, advising, preparing and exercising legislative oversight, preparing and, in part, conducting legislative compromise-seeking, and interacting with various actors, such as lobby groups, citizens, and the media.Yet, such roles may well vary between political systems.

This issue seeks to provide cutting-edge research in this emerging field, bridging the disciplines of political science and public administration.

The Sustainable Development Goals, which were adopted in the context of the UN in 2015, place emphasis, among others, on fighting poverty, reducing inequalities, and promoting peace, justice and strong institutions. This issue will bring together manuscripts that assess how legal, political, and economic mechanisms and processes in countries of the Global South contribute to or hinder the implementation of pro-poor policies, as well as how “pro-poor” policies are understood and enacted in practice.

We start with a recognition that the meaning of pro-poor policies has a contentious history even among major international organisations that have deployed the term, with a notable tension between the World Bank—which promotes poverty targeting and poverty reduction—versus the UN—that has typically emphasized inequality reduction and more universal approaches to social provisioning. In this respect, the key policy areas that have come to dominate the imagination of pro-poor policies generally focus on social protection policies and labour policies for employment generation, which will also serve as the primary focus of this thematic issue.

The literature in the fields of political science, governance, and political economy has pointed out the need to study formal and informal mechanisms of rule for a proper understanding of the pro-poor effects of such policies and programmes. Major sub-themes include:

• The clout of different types of legal mechanisms in generating pro-poor outcomes;
• The power, interests, and ideologies of rivalling political actors with influence over the shape and outcomes of pro-poor policies (including national governments, international donor agencies, civil society, and private sector actors);
• The constraints and potential solutions that various institutional configurations offer to improve the articulations and outcomes of pro-poor policies;
• The evolution and diffusion of the pro-poor agenda and its contribution to the understanding of pro-poor policymaking and the rethinking of the poverty-reduction challenge.

In the past 15 years, democratic innovations such as participatory budgeting, citizen juries, and citizens' assemblies have emerged as impactful practices that can contribute to improving the quality, effectiveness, legitimacy, and authority of public decisions through enhanced citizen participation and deliberation. Despite initial enthusiasm, these models often need help finding adequate forms of institutionalization, which could strengthen and multiply their impacts and legitimacy. Globally, there are numerous instances of democratic innovations being formalized through different types of regulatory frameworks involving a wide range of hard and soft laws. Yet, a significant gap remains in scholarly analysis about the lessons these attempts at institutionalization can offer.

Several key questions persist, such as:

• What factors facilitate or hinder the institutionalization and embedding of participatory practices?

• Why does resistance to formalization persist among institutional actors, legal scholars, and social movements?

•  Which degrees and types of institutionalization models appear more desirable and effective?

• How does the broader institutional context influence the processes of formalization?

• What challenges arise in the context of democratic decline?

This thematic issue aims to address these questions and invites diverse perspectives to explore the tensions between political creativity and institutionalization. While institutionalization provides the necessary structure and regularity for democratic innovations, it can also stifle the creativity that drives them. The studies presented suggest that successful institutionalization requires balancing these aspects to support robust democratic frameworks, systemic approaches, and continuity and incremental evolution in the quality of participatory and deliberative practices. This balance is crucial for fostering a participatory culture that adapts to evolving political and social landscapes, enhancing the quality and sustainability of democracy.

In recent years, industrial policy has made a comeback across the globe, with governments being increasingly willing to redirect economic activities towards strategically important technologies such as semiconductors, cloud computing, or batteries. This shift is evident in initiatives such as the Inflation Reduction Act (in the US), EU Chips Acts, China 2030, or New Industry Brazil. The political economy literature generally attributes the return of industrial policy to the interplay of two forces. First, the neoliberal economic policy consensus that had prevailed for the last decades has been re-politicised, as influential actors across the political spectrum have called for more government intervention to address problems ranging from climate change to economic inequality to regional decline. Second, economic policymaking has become increasingly geopoliticized, as economic rationales have become increasingly enmeshed with geopolitical and geoeconomic ones.

Thus far, the bulk of the political economy debate has focused on the coalitional politics of these changes; or, alternatively, on the desirability of more active forms of state intervention. However, while this literature has made great inroads into understanding the drivers of, or making the case for, a new industrial policy, we know much less about how the new industrial policy actually works on the (post-neoliberal) ground:

•     How the policy design  of  industrial  policy measures  impacts the fairness  and effectiveness  of  state  intervention?  

•     How  (or if) public  goals  and  private  gains   can   be  reconciled?  

•     And, more  generally,  how   political,  administrative,  or ideological constraints  shape the  rollout  of  industrial  policies?

Broad public acceptance of the legitimacy of election results is an essential feature of democracy. However, the mechanics of administering elections can never be exactly perfect, and some elites—particularly losers of elections—may have incentives to raise doubts about the legitimacy of electoral processes and election results. Election administration, elite rhetoric, news media environment, social media, campaign finance rules, electoral systems, and other factors may interact in shaping public confidence in elections and perceptions of electoral integrity.

This issue aims to expand our understanding of how these and other factors contribute to what public confidence in elections means. This presents several questions to address, including but not limited to:

• Do election integrity concerns matter less for different electoral systems, lower-order elections, or non-candidate elections (e.g., referendums initiatives)?

• What relationships may there be between districting, apportionment, and electoral integrity/confidence in elections?

• How can public confidence in elections be measured in a way that aids comparison, and what explains variation in confidence at the individual level and cross-nationally?

• What are the consequences of robust public confidence in election results, and the consequences of reduced confidence in election results?

• Are there demonstrated effective methods of educating, “pre-bunking,” or “inoculating” the public from misinformation associated with reduced confidence in election results?

• Is there evidence that better quality of election management, particular laws or reforms, can build confidence in elections among winners and losers alike?