This article argues that folklore (orally transmitted group knowledge) shapes far-right voting by inculcating feeling rules that resonate with nativist and autocratic ideas. Drawing on recently rediscovered archives of nineteenth- and twentieth-century folklorists, we pair a dataset of local support for the far-right in all Reichstag elections in Germany’s Weimar period, with unique information on the prevalence of ethnic bogeymen in local folktales. Using spatial autoregressive models, we find a robust and considerable effect of the presence of fearful folktales on radical right voting. These effects are particularly strong for localities where citizens face political and economic threats. We use an instrumental variable analysis drawing on folklore data from the 1860s to establish the long-term roots of this pattern, disentangle the effect of folktales from contemporary political influences, and establish causal order. Our findings suggest that folklore plays a key role in aligning the supply and demand for far-right movements by shaping how citizens see and feel the world around them. In addition, we illustrate that folklore archives provide a unique opportunity to unpack affective-discursive canons across space and time.

Political leaders play a potentially important role shaping behaviors and beliefs during crises. In the pandemic, a number of high-status politicians, notably leaders of populist parties, were seen to diminish compliance with institutional recommendations by casting doubt on COVID guidelines. But what happens when such leaders change position and endorse previously discouraged behaviors? Using longitudinal data from the Understanding Coronavirus in America panel with fixed-effects modeling, this article examines how Trump’s unexpected endorsement of facemasks in July 2020 affected individuals’ likelihood of wearing a facemask and belief in masks’ efficacy. I find that Trump’s pivot lifted Republicans’ use of facemasks, closing 40 percent of the preexisting gap with Democrats and with stronger effects among individuals who were more exposed to the early-summer spike in COVID cases. Additionally, I provide evidence for the unique significance of this moment in the history of the pandemic, showing that at almost no other time did partisan behaviors converge as sharply. However, in contrast to expectations from most dominant theoretical models of behavioral change, especially the health belief model, no corresponding shift in beliefs about facemasks can be detected. These results have important theoretical implications for understanding how pivots can shape behaviors during crises, the validity of existing models in public health, pandemic populism’s causes, and directions of future research.

Low-income households in the United States draw on public and private resources to manage economic risk. Cross-national scholars describe a “credit–welfare state tradeoff” where credit markets become particularly important when state benefits are less supportive. The United States is frequently highlighted in this regard, with its often-inadequate market-first safety net. Both credit markets and the safety net are, however, highly unequal and segmented across U.S. states. We provide new empirical insights on the credit–welfare state nexus by leveraging a large national sample of credit record data that allows us to distinguish between credit instruments. We link these data to a comprehensive dataset on state safety nets with comparable measures of program supportiveness. We estimate two-way fixed-effects models that exploit temporal variation within states in safety net supportiveness. We find that living in states with more supportive safety nets is associated with a lower probability of high-cost alternative payday, installment, and personal finance loan use, and a higher probability of mainstream credit card access, particularly among low-income households. In the context of the relative inadequacy of the U.S. safety net, state safety net supportiveness matters less for whether people borrow than for what credit instruments they use. Our findings suggest that efforts to restrict the U.S. safety net are likely to increase reliance on high-cost loans among low-income households, furthering the unequal burden of interest and fees levied on these households.

Studying the relationship between neighborhoods and individual-level outcomes such as crime, labor market success, or intergenerational mobility has a long history in the social sciences. As local processes like gentrification constantly change neighborhoods’ composition and spatial expansion, time-constant one-size-fits-all neighborhood measures fail to capture important local dynamics. This article presents a flexible and data-driven approach for efficiently estimating overlapping and arbitrarily shaped neighborhoods with time-dynamic boundaries. Constructed in a two-stage clustering design, the first stage identifies homogeneous groups within a city, while the second stage clusters homogeneous groups by spatial proximity. In an analysis of 86 million person-year observations from 76 German cities, the paper shows that a larger spatial expansion of affluent neighborhoods negatively correlates with city crime cases, while higher neighborhood fragmentation and heterogeneity correlate positively with crime rates. The findings stress the importance of flexible neighborhood estimation techniques and the necessity to view neighborhoods as nonconstant entities.

This paper examines the association between national identity, defined as individuals’ cognitive and emotional attachment to the nation, and fertility intentions. A form of social identity, national identity shapes everyday interactions and choices, and individuals with a strong national identity are more likely to adjust their behavior and to follow the expressed or inferred norms for the “good of the nation.” This study argues that a stronger national identity results in fertility intentions that are aligned with the nation's needs (whether higher or lower fertility) through its effects on personal attitudes, conformity to childbearing norms and expectations, and perceived control over fertility. The findings indicate that in a pronatalist context where higher fertility is actively encouraged by the nation, a stronger national identity is associated with a lower probability of intending to remain childless and a higher probability of intending to have two or more children, with variation by age, gender, and relationship status—highlighting national identity as an important factor when considering fertility‐related decisions.

Fertility rates in developed countries have declined to historically low levels, yet the reasons remain incompletely understood. This study examines the relative importance of diverse macro contextual constraints on childbearing intentions among young adults (aged 20–35) in Poland, a country emblematic of Europe's fertility decline. Using a factorial survey design ( N = 1,337), we compare how the availability of stable and gainful employment, opportunities to purchase a dwelling, access to childcare, the overall level of men's involvement in domestic work, climate change prospects, and access to abortion shape the decision to have a first or second child. Results confirm the enduring salience of economic security—both employment and housing—for fertility intentions across gender and parenthood status. Access to abortion rights emerges as the most influential factor for childless women and a significant consideration for mothers and partnered men. Access to childcare and overall men's involvement in the domestic sphere positively influence women's intentions but matter less for men, particularly those single and childless. Climate concerns are comparatively less influential. Men's intentions appear less responsive overall. Findings highlight the interplay of institutions and gender norms, and the limits of pro‐natalist policies that neglect reproductive autonomy and gender equality.

Despite considerable focus on clustering as a dimension of segregation and the explosion of big location data, the extant literature has not explicitly examined residential racial segregation and the clustering of racially segregated space as an influence on mobility. Drawing on urban sociological theories, we test criteria contributing to individuals’ selection of key activity neighborhoods. Using a range of spatial data sources, we compare White and Black individuals’ choice of frequently visited neighborhoods in Chicago, stratified by whether residing in a contiguous segregated cluster (CSC). Discrete choice models show evidence for the impact of clustered residential segregation in individual decision-making. Net of distance, all groups are drawn to White CSC neighborhoods. White residents exhibit a pattern of geographic isolation, gravitating toward White CSC tracts and away from Black spaces, CSC and non-CSC alike. Black residents of Black CSC neighborhoods are more likely to have activity locations in White CSC neighborhoods than their own residential CSC, largely because of the relative institutional, amenity, and crime-related advantages of these areas. Results are robust to alternative specifications of choice sets and institutional deficits. Implications for understanding the social context of routine location choice and designing desegregation policies through behavioral “nudges” are discussed.

Climate governance has historically grappled with regulatory deadlock over corporate accountability for the climate crisis. Within this context of regulatory impasse, climate disclosure emerged as the central framework in financial regulatory approaches to climate change. Extending theories of legal endogeneity to advance socio-legal studies of climate governance, this article explains how private actors institutionalized climate disclosure from a voluntary corporate practice into a cornerstone of international accounting standards and financial regulation. Drawing on seventy-four interviews with sustainability professionals, fifteen months of participant observation, and analysis of public documents, this article shows how climate finance practitioners from a key nongovernmental organization, the Carbon Disclosure Project, repurposed financial disclosure toward the disclosure of climate metrics, developed increasingly specific iterations of metrics that formed the basis of climate disclosure standards, and stabilized voluntary climate disclosure within reporting standards by incorporating climate into financial risk management. This analysis contributes to charting the development of corporate climate governance in two ways. First, cooperation from the financial community and corporations was secured by incorporating climate issues within information-based risk management approaches that used financial disclosure as a tool to facilitate the flow of climate information between companies and investors. Second, the institutionalization of climate disclosure within financial regulation reframed climate change into new forms of risk to companies, rather than accounting for the risks companies pose to the climate and environment.

This article offers a critique of both the overall focus and key substantive arguments associated with growth model analysis and, in particular, of Baccaro and Pontusson's account of how and why governments adopt policies favourable to the promotion of particular growth models. Our critique centres upon two arguments. First, existing work downplays the role of the state in the politics and governance of growth models and, conversely, overstates the significance of producer coalitions and business actors. Second, we introduce a life cycle account of growth models and argue that current growth model analysis focuses almost exclusively upon the functioning of existing and established growth models, neglecting two other stages in their life cycle relating to their initial establishment and eventual decline or termination. We argue that the relations between producer groups and states vary across these different stages of growth model dynamics. Our ‘state-centric relational’ account emphasises how state actors, while they may sometimes find it in their interests to work with business interests, should not, by default, be viewed as being subservient to them.