The study of popular support for authoritarian regimes has long relied on the assumption that respondents provide truthful answers to surveys. However, when measuring regime support in closed political systems there is a distinct risk that individuals are less than forthright due to fear that their opinions may be made known to the public or the authorities. In order to test this assumption, we conducted a novel web-based survey in China in which we included four list experiments of commonly used items in the comparative literature on regime support. We find systematic bias for all four measures; substantially more individuals state that they support the regime with direct questioning than when presented with our indirect list experiments. The level of self-censorship, which ranges from 24.5 to 26.5 percentage points, is considerably higher than previously thought. Self-censorship is further most prevalent among the wealthy, urban, female and younger respondents.

Prior research has consistently identified education as an important correlate of political knowledge, which, many argue, reflects an underlying causal relationship. However, recent work has questioned this interpretation rather arguing that family background causes one to both obtain an education and to develop political knowledge. I argue that this causal-versus-proxy debate is too simplistic. Specifically, using a sample of identical twins, I test the interaction between education, political discussion in the home, and political knowledge. I find that education is positively associated with political knowledge independent of family background and genetics for those who discussed politics with family relatively little during upbringing. However, for those who discussed politics with family members more frequently, education has no association with political knowledge independent of pre-adult factors. Therefore, education compensates for a lack of exposure to political content in the home.

Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) is a new approach to conceptualization and measurement of democracy. The headquarters the V-Dem Institute is based at the University of Gothenburg with 17 sta↵, and a project team across the world with 6 Principal Investigators, 14 Project Managers, 30 Regional Managers, 170 Country Coordinators, Research Assistants, and 3,000 Country Experts, the V-Dem project is one of the largest ever social science research-oriented data collection programs.Please address comments and/or queries for information to: AbstractThe study of popular support for authoritarian regimes, and the comparative study of political attitudes, has long relied on the assumption that survey respondents provide truthful answers on surveys. However, when measuring regime support in closed political systems there is a distinct risk that individuals are less than forthright due to fear that their opinions may be made known to the public or the authorities. In order to test this assumption, we conducted a novel web-based survey in China in which we included four list experiments of commonly used items in the comparative literature on regime support. We find systematic bias for all four measures as a result of selfcensorship; substantially more individuals state that they support the regime with direct questioning than do when presented with our anonymous, indirect list experiments. The level of self-censorship, which ranges from 16 to 22 percentage points, is considerably higher than previously thought. Selfcensorship is further most prevalent among the wealthy, urban, female and younger respondents. These findings indicate that prior studies that have found high levels of support for the Chinese regime using these particular measures likely overestimate the true level of support. Further, crossnational studies which compare popular support across regime type may be systematically biased if responses are not subject to the same level of falsification across regime types.The most elegant way to adjust to censorship is to engage in self-censorship. It is the perfect method for allying with power and setting the stage for mutual exchange of benefit.

Whether refugees in need of protection should be granted long- or short-term residence permits in the host country upon arrival is a long-standing debate in the migration policy and scholarly literature. Rights-based models of inclusion advocate for secure and long-term residency status arguing that this will provide the foundations for successful inclusion. Responsibilities-based models on the other hand claim that migrants should only be granted such status if certain criteria, such as full-time employment, have been met, again under the belief that such a system will facilitate inclusion into the host society. Using a sudden policy change as a natural experiment combined with detailed Swedish registry data, we examine the effect permanent residency on three measures of labour market inclusion in the short-term. Our findings are twofold. On the one hand, we find that temporary residents that are subject to a relatively less-inclusive situation have higher incomes and less unemployment. However, at the same time, they are less likely to spend time in education than are those with permanent residency. First part title Permanent or Temporary Settlement? Second part title A Study on the Short-Term Effects of Temporary and Permanent Residence Permits on Labour Market Participation

Political science has long viewed education as an instrumental factor in developing support for democracy and beneficial for democratization. However, governments, both democratic and authoritarian, have substantial control over the curriculum and develop education institutions with the specific aim to instill in students the norms and values that underpin the regime. With this in mind, this study asks, does the effect of education vary by the political regime in which education was undertaken? We use a quasi-experimental approach exploiting European compulsory schooling reforms, implemented under both democratic and authoritarian regimes, to answer this question. We find that education has no effect on principle and functional support for democracy, but that education’s effect on satisfaction with democracy is conditional on regime type. For those educated under a democratic regime, education led to greater satisfaction with democracy, whereas those educated under an authoritarian regime became less satisfied with democracy.