Abstracts Submission
The following issues are currently accepting abstract submissions:
Voting Advice Applications: Methodological Innovations, Behavioural Effects, and Research Perspectives
Academic Editors: Diego Garzia (University of Lausanne), Stefan Marschall (Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf), Mathias Wessel Tromborg (Aarhus University), and Andreas Brøgger Albertsen (Aarhus University)
- Submission of Abstracts: 1-15 May 2025
- Submission of Full Papers: 15-31 August 2025
- Publication of the Issue: January/June 2026
The group of online tools labelled Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) serves voters to compare their policy preferences on major issues with the stances of political parties/candidates on these policies. VAAs have become a widespread phenomenon within electoral campaigns in Europe—on the national as well as on the transnational level. As they have been established in many European countries—and as they are used intensively by voters—VAAs have started to constitute a field of social science research resulting in national research projects, publications, and European networking. In recent years, a progressive interest has arisen with respect to the consistency and reliability of the voting advice provided by these applications. Additionally, the impressive numbers of users visiting VAA-websites during election campaigns have led political scientists to research the effects of these tools on users’ electoral behavior. Finally, VAAs have started to become a topic of democratic theory. The articles of this thematic issue address the role of VAAs in European democracies and the European Union; they bridge VAA research to central fields of political science, such as electoral studies, party research, and democratic theory.
Readers across the globe will be able to access, share, and download this issue entirely for free. Corresponding authors affiliated with any of our institutional members (over 90 institutions worldwide) publish free of charge. Otherwise, an article processing fee will be charged to the authors to cover editorial costs. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and encourage them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication costs. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.
Contemporary Research in Political Culture: A Multidisciplinary Approach
Academic Editors: Stylianos Ioannis Tzagkarakis (Hellenic Open University) and Martin Neumann (University of Southern Denmark)
- Submission of Abstracts: 1-15 May 2025
- Submission of Full Papers: 15-31 October 2025
- Publication of the Issue: July/December 2026
Contemporary research on political culture investigates the interconnection between political ideas, discourses, and actions within their broader cultural and societal frameworks—how a particular political process is embedded in a particular culture that gives meaning to political processes. It also examines the influence of internal and external factors on national contexts. Both theoretical and empirical studies seek to address urgent challenges in modern politics, including various forms of democracy and their inherent tensions, the construction and representation of national identities, polarization and trust and distrust in institutions at local, national, and supranational levels, the roots and long-term effects of political violence, and the evolving role of Artificial Intelligence. This scope encompasses critical developments such as the rise of populist movements and the impact of populism on political dynamics, the multidimensional crises confronting modern democracies, the proliferation of nationalist groups and identity politics, and the growing influence of AI in political communication. Addressing these issues requires interdisciplinary approaches, offering a holistic understanding of the complex factors shaping political culture in the contemporary era. This thematic issue is based on multidisciplinarity as it aims to bring new perspectives from disciplines such as history, cultural studies, political science, and sociology into the study of political culture. It seeks to explore the ways that political culture affects citizenship, nation-building processes, democratic stability and transformation, as well as public sentiment and political representation.
Readers across the globe will be able to access, share, and download this issue entirely for free. Corresponding authors affiliated with any of our institutional members (over 90 institutions worldwide) publish free of charge. Otherwise, an article processing fee will be charged to the authors to cover editorial costs. We defend that authors should not have to personally pay this fee and encourage them to check with their institutions if funds are available to cover open access publication costs. Further information about the journal's open access charges can be found here.