The concept of delegation offers scholars of federalism a novel analytical framework for examining previously overlooked aspects of fiscal centralization. Adopting a bottom-up approach, we develop a taxonomy of delegation types to assess the dynamic evolution and feedback effects of key milestones of fiscal centralization in Argentina, a developing federation with institutionally strong provinces that have increasingly surrendered revenue authority. We conceptualize fiscal centralization as a cyclical economic adjustment, wherein provinces delegated tax and borrowing powers following major economic disruptions – specifically, the Great Depression and Argentina’s sovereign debt default. In contrast, during periods of economic growth that promised increased subnational fiscal revenues, provinces further relinquished tax authority as a procyclical correction. Overall, this analysis demonstrates how categorizing delegation into distinct types can enrich the literature on the distribution of fiscal power – a central dimension of subnational self-rule in federal systems.

Political language is deeply intertwined with social identities. While social identities are often shaped by specific cultural contexts and expressed through particular uses of language, existing datasets for group and identity detection are predominantly English-centric, single-label and focus on coarse identity categories. We introduce HebID, the first multilabel Hebrew corpus for social identity detection: 5,536 sentences from Israeli politicians' Facebook posts (Dec 2018-Apr 2021), manually annotated for twelve nuanced social identities (e.g. Rightist, Ultra-Orthodox, Socially-oriented) grounded by survey data. We benchmark multilabel and single-label encoders alongside 2B-9B-parameter generative LLMs, finding that Hebrew-tuned LLMs provide the best results (macro-$F_1$ = 0.74). We apply our classifier to politicians' Facebook posts and parliamentary speeches, evaluating differences in popularity, temporal trends, clustering patterns, and gender-related variations in identity expression. We utilize identity choices from a national public survey, enabling a comparison between identities portrayed in elite discourse and the public's identity priorities. HebID provides a comprehensive foundation for studying social identities in Hebrew and can serve as a model for similar research in other non-English political contexts.

Why do some subnational governments consent to the centralization of fiscal authority? This article’s explanatory framework is built on the cases of Argentina and Australia. It adopts an inverse perspective to explain why subnational entities in these two cases assented to revenue centralization during moments of sudden economic change. In the case of Argentina, subnational abdication of revenue powers has unexpectedly resulted in a more predictable and formalized fiscal co-responsibility. By contrast, in Australia, the abdication of borrowing powers and the permanent loss of income tax revenue following a temporary delegation have unexpectedly caused a large vertical fiscal accountability gap.

We introduce a novel multi-labeled scheme for joint annotation of hate and counter-hate speech in social media conversations, categorizing hate and counter-hate messages into thematic and rhetorical dimensions. The thematic categories outline different discursive aspects of each type of speech, while the rhetorical dimension captures how hate and counter messages are communicated, drawing on Aristotle's Logos, Ethos and Pathos. We annotate a sample of 92 conversations, consisting of 720 tweets, and conduct statistical analyses, incorporating public metrics, to explore patterns of interaction between the thematic and rhetorical dimensions within and between hate and counter-hate speech. Our findings provide insights into the spread of hate messages on social media, the strategies used to counter them, and their potential impact on online behavior.

Can major cities accommodate the growing political polarization surrounding immigration? Attitudes of city residents toward immigrants vary widely, influenced by factors like urban diversity, labor market dynamics, and cultural identity. While some embrace immigrants as enriching urban life, others view them as threats to culture and economic stability. Using data from three original surveys from Berlin, Barcelona, and Paris (N = 1500), we explore how engagement in urban politics shapes these attitudes, considering national and non-national identities. Results indicate a correlation between political engagement and positive attitudes toward immigrants but also reveal how it can reinforce existing identity-based biases, potentially polarizing urban politics. Our comparative analysis highlights city-specific variations, with Berlin showing favorable attitudes alongside stronger polarization than Paris and Barcelona. These differences possibly stem from urban conditions, such as diversity, capital city status, and pro-immigrant policies. These findings highlight the central role of cities in shaping immigration politics—both as spaces that foster inclusive, a-national affiliations and as battlegrounds where national identity-driven polarization can intensify. In the conclusion, we discuss the implications of these findings for local governments, particularly how cities can respond to the growing political divides.

Coalition management is challenging, especially during the agenda-setting stage. The prime minister has to balance the priorities of the coalition partners, ministers from her party, and broader government priorities. To meet this challenge, the prime minister has agenda-setting power. Most research has studied the agenda-setting power during periods of stability. This paper asks how a crisis affects prime ministers' use of agenda-setting power by looking at the use of one discretionary agenda-setting rule: amending the agenda at the last minute. We use unique data from Israeli cabinet meetings over a period of 21 years and three crises, comparing prime ministers' last-minute changes to the agenda. We find that prime ministers are less inclined to change the agenda at the last minute during crises, and when they do so, this power is often, but not exclusively, deployed for crisis management. These findings suggest that crisis decreases the pressures exerted by prime ministers' party members and coalition partners, allowing prime ministers more latitude to promote their priorities without recourse to manipulation. The findings underscore the importance of coalition dynamics, coalition management, and agenda setting for crisis management.

This study investigates the interactions of forced migrants with state actors in transit countries at critical decision nodal points (DNPs) along their journey—defined as turning points where migrants make decisions about resuming mobility or altering the course of their journey. Granted official legal power by the state, transit state actors operate on the ground in various ways using their power. Nevertheless, their roles in the decision-making as experienced by forced migrants have been studied very little. We examine the journey narratives of forced migrants originating from Eritrea and Sudan. We quantitatively identify and analyze spaces of mobility, immobility and DNPs, within their trajectories. The findings demonstrate that state actors in transit countries can serve as integral and concrete journey components that shape migration outcomes. The study concludes by presenting two insights into (i) the directionality of influence (enabling versus halting journey plans) and (ii) the encounter space (direct-official spaces versus indirect spaces).

Recent studies portray civil servants as potential guardians against populist attempts to undermine liberal democracy. However in polarized societies, bureaucrats, like citizens, tend to hold divergent perceptions of the threat that politicians’ actions pose to democracy. This, in turn, likely shapes bureaucrats’ responses. We examine this in the context of the attempt by Israel’s extreme right-wing populist government to curtail the powers and independence of the Israeli Supreme Court and replace legal advisors with political appointees (hereafter the “legal overhaul”). We employ a mixed-methods design, combining a survey, interviews, and a focus group with career civil servants, showing that those who perceive the legal overhaul as a threat to democracy are more inclined to exit government and less likely to voice and exert effort at work. These findings are attributed to respondents’ views of the legal overhaul as leading to future politicization, curtailed influence, and a threat to their role as civil servants.

Transparency, accountability, participation and inclusiveness are central concepts in the literature on public administration. They are considered qualities that enable administrative bodies to share power with social and political actors and strengthen their democratic nature. These qualities have also been recognized as crucial for regulatory bodies, especially because of the technocratic nature of these bodies. Despite their importance, the literature provides limited measurement of these qualities, which means that neither the extent to which regulatory bodies are formally required to provide for transparency, accountability, participation and inclusiveness nor the extent to which they do so in practice can be captured and compared adequately. To address this gap, we develop measures of ‘de jure’ and ‘de facto’ transparency, accountability, participation and inclusiveness from a novel data set of 49 national, subnational and supranational regulatory bodies in three sectors (data protection, food safety and finance) and in nine countries. We use Item Response Theory methods to validate the indicators and their relative weight in the measure, providing a tool substantiated by comprehensive data to assess how regulatory bodies enhance democratic governance.

In recent years, an increasing number of women have been elected as candidates by radical-right parties. Does this trend toward feminization of the radical right improve the substantive representation of women's interest? Our investigation reveals that instead of moderating their positions on gender roles in response to increased female visibility, radical-right parties have further radicalized their ideology, as evidenced by their parliamentary discourse. We analyze speeches delivered in the European Parliament between 2009 and 2023 by delegates from nine parties, four of which are radical-right. Results show that a higher proportion of women in radical-right parties is associated with their representatives’ greater preoccupation with conservative ideology on gender issues. The article discusses the implications of its findings for the study of gender and anti-democratic politics.