In many countries, voters are targeted with clientelistic and programmatic electoral offers. Existing research explores the demand side of clientelism, but we still know very little about what determines voters' acceptance of clientelistic and programmatic electoral offers. This article builds a novel theoretical framework on the role that democratic dissatisfaction and political knowledge play in shaping voters' acceptance of different types of electoral offers. We test the implications of the theory with a survey experiment conducted after the 2019 local elections in Bulgaria. Our results show that low-knowledge voters and those who are dissatisfied with the performance of democracy and democratic institutions are more likely to accept clientelistic offers from politicians. The findings contribute to the literature on electoral clientelism and political attitudes.

This article proposes a mixed methods measurement of the mass-elite congruence of opinions on the EU based on a combination of speech and survey data. It focuses on two countries (Bulgaria and Romania) that were known for their pro-European profile until their EU accession, but which faced many political difficulties afterwards. The analysis covers the 2013-2017 period that includes a great deal of these post-accession difficulties. The article illustrates how we can make meaningful comparisons between short-term, dichotomous mass and elite attitudes with timeframes determined by non-electoral events.

The content of referendum campaigns and their potential effect on voters has been broadly covered in the literature. However, there is little information about who follows the campaigns. We do not know the characteristics of the campaign audience and what drives voter's attention to it. To address this gap in the literature our article aims to identify what determines people who vote in referendums to pay attention to the political campaign. The analysis focuses on the 2016 referendum in Bulgaria and uses individual-level data from an original survey conducted in spring 2017. The findings indicate that high interest in politics and the use of traditional media increase the level of campaign following. The online news consumption and political participation have a lower positive effect.

Almost three decades after the regime change in Central and Eastern Europe, some of the political parties that were successors of the communists continue to enjoy important electoral support. This article makes an attempt to understand why this happens and focuses on the role of the party organization. It includes a qualitative analysis on the typical case of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSČM) based on a series of semi-structured interviews with party cadres and independent researchers. These interviews reveal that the stable territorial distribution of their performance amidst significant electoral volatility since 2010 highlights an organizational impasse within the party.

The content of referendum campaigns and their potential effect on voters has been broadly covered in the literature. However, there is little information about who follows the campaigns. We do not know the characteristics of the campaign audience and what drives voter's attention to it. To address this gap in the literature our article aims to identify what determines people who vote in referendums to pay attention to the political campaign. The analysis focuses on the 2016 referendum in Bulgaria and uses individual-level data from an original survey conducted in spring 2017. The findings indicate that high interest in politics and the use of traditional media increase the level of campaign following. The online news consumption and political participation have a lower positive effect.