Polihot

JOP 88/3 pp. 1186-1201 2026-07-01 Original The Hidden Universe of Operationalizing Natural Experiments: Navigating Extreme Weather Franziska Quoß, Lukas Rudolph Abstract Natural or quasi-experimental research designs are based on exogenous variation, oftentimes requiring operationalization before use in statistical tests. For this, researchers regularly lack clear theoretical guidance and need to make threshold decisions. We show for three types of shocks—extreme weather, immigration exposure, and commodity price changes—that this leads to a vast menu of equally plausible measurements, which are used unsystematically in ensuing literatures. This hidden universe of operationalization decisions has consequences: Drawing on geocoded survey and weather panel data for Switzerland, we show that different measurements of extreme weather exposure exhibit vast statistical and geographical variation. Importantly, researchers can support arbitrary conclusions when using singular operationalizations, while, in our case, the whole set indicates robust null effects. These results highlight that measurement decisions induce relevant researcher degrees of freedom rarely made transparent. We consequently discuss how current practice could improve, concluding with a template and recommendations.

JOP 88/3 pp. 935-951 2026-07-01 Original The Gender Gap in Political Careers Under Proportional Representation Tobias Nowacki Abstract （原文未提供摘要） 中文 比例代表制下的政治生涯性别差距 Tobias Nowacki 摘要 原文未提供摘要 关键词 性别差距、政治生涯、比例代表制、选举制度、政治代表 DOI: 10.1086/735871 查看原文 →

JOP 88/3 pp. 1175-1185 2026-07-01 Original The Compleat Economic Voter in Belgium: Channels of Accountability in a Complex Multilevel Government System Martin Okolikj, Marc Hooghe, Michael S. Lewis-Beck

JOP 88/3 pp. 1027-1047 2026-07-01 Original The Church as Arbiter: A Divided Right in Interwar France Carles Boix, Jean Lacroix Abstract To document the impact of elites’ choices on political movements, we leverage the condemnation of L’Action Française (AF), a monarchist movement, by Pope Pius XI in 1926. As a consequence of the papal condemnation, French Catholics had to choose between their involvement in AF and accessing Catholic sacraments. Difference-in-differences estimates show that the papal condemnation reshaped AF’s territorial distribution and social basis, weakening its support in religious areas while attracting more secularized followers. Following that shift, AF mutated from being a conservative nationalist movement with strong Catholic connections to an extreme organization entangled with a violent and anti-parliamentarian right. Our examination of the role of elites in the development of political movements allows us to shed new light on the dynamics that resulted in the collapse of democracy in interwar Europe.

JOP 88/3 pp. 1216-1230 2026-07-01 Original The Answer Was There All Along: Worry About the Dynamics! Ali Kagalwala, Guy D. Whitten Abstract In an influential article in 1974, Clive Granger and Paul Newbold demonstrated that regressions with variables that have unit roots often lead to spurious inferences. However, researchers have overlooked the fact that Granger and Newbold’s results were from a static time series model plagued with residual autocorrelation. We demonstrate, analytically and through simulations, that, under most circumstances, adding lags of both the outcome and predictor(s) can account for serial correlation and avoid spurious inferences. We thus recommend the use of a general modeling strategy, an autoregressive distributed lag model with multiple lags of the outcome and predictor(s), as one possible alternative of model choice that is less likely than other commonly used models to reach incorrect conclusions about true effects. Furthermore, our recommended approach performs well relative to the Webb, Linn, and Lebo bounds approach, the latest in a series of techniques designed to avoid the problematic nature of unit root testing.

JOP 88/3 pp. 1258-1263 2026-07-01 Original Testing the Compensatory Theory: A Survey Experiment on COVID-19 and Redistributive Preferences in the UK Mariana Alvarado, Pablo Querubin, Kenneth Scheve, David Stasavage

PMR — pp. 1-27 2026-07-01 Original Statistical footprints in corruption measurement: general approach, with application to automobile license plates in Russia Tom Eeckhout, Timur Natkhov, Leonid Polishchuk, Koen Schoors, Kevin Hoefman

AJPS — 2026-07-01 Original State surveillance and collective dissent Gaétan Nandong Abstract Abstract State surveillance facilitates the collection of intelligence on dissidents while simultaneously providing information about the value of the status quo. I study this trade‐off in a context where an uninformed government must decide whether to repress. Because citizens expect more informed governments to enact greater repression, autocratic surveillance can create a climate of fear. However, surveillance can also stimulate dissent when citizens have access to public information. State surveillance gives citizens an opportunity to coordinate, even in the absence of a preference for such coordination. Surveillance can amplify dissent by enhancing citizens' motivations for political activism aimed at drawing the government's attention to political and economic issues. Coordination distorts government learning, resulting in lower expected levels of repression. The analysis further indicates that the effectiveness of advanced surveillance technology depends on expectations regarding repression, thereby underscoring a psychological aspect of state control.

WP 78/3 pp. 602-641 2026-07-01 Original South-South Immigration and Redistribution Preferences: Evidence from Colombia Josep Serrano-Serrat, Ignacio Jurado Abstract abstract: Research on the effects of immigration on redistribution preferences mostly focuses on Western countries and neglects the Global South. The authors argue that immigration shocks may have different effects in South-South migration than they do in South-North contexts. On one hand, the effects should be more muted in the former due to minimal cultural differences and limited development of the welfare state. On the other hand, the impact might be larger due to high economic inequality and scarce resources. To investigate these differences, the authors follow a two-fold strategy. First, they exploit the 2015 Venezuelan immigration shock in Colombia using a difference-in-differences strategy, complemented by an instrumental variable. The authors find null-to-positive effects. Second, a survey experiment reveals that priming citizens on immigration has positive effects on citizens’ social spending preferences. The authors attribute this effect to deservingness considerations. These results challenge some prevailing theories and sug-gest that increased immigration does not necessarily reduce redistribution preferences in South-South contexts.

JOP 88/3 pp. 1202-1215 2026-07-01 Original Soft Power as Constituency Cultivation Scott A. Tyson, Ethan Kapstein, Audrye Wong Abstract How do foreign agents, representing countries or other political actors, exert influence in another country? While scholars have directed considerable theoretical and empirical attention toward “hard power” (e.g., coercion [explicit or implicit] and corruption/bribery), far less consideration has been devoted to understanding the theoretical mechanisms associated with “soft” channels of political influence. We develop a novel theory of soft power as constituency cultivation whereby an actor (government or firm) makes a targeted investment in a foreign society with the objective of creating greater policy alignment among a set of politically relevant actors (the policy selectorate). We consider two factors that influence constituency cultivation, preexisting interest congruence and coordination (e.g., focal points), and extend our model to include corruption and other forms of bribery. We show how the potential for corruption/bribery can enhance the benefits from soft power, implying that corruption and soft power are complementary forms of influence.