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This special issue examines the geopoliticisation of domestic political issues in the Baltic Sea region and Central and Eastern Europe in the context of Russia’s war against Ukraine. It conceptualises geopoliticisation as a process through which domestic conflicts, preferences, and political debates are reframed in terms of geopolitical alignments and rivalries, particularly along a value-based divide between the West/EU and Russia. Bringing together contributions that analyse party strategies, public opinion, elite-driven dynamics, and electoral behaviour, the issue explores how geopolitical orientations are constructed, mobilised, and contested within national contexts.

Do people favour a strong presidency because they support theincumbent president, or do such attitudes reflect endorsement ofnon-democratic regimes and strongman rule? We examine thisresearch question among seven semi-presidential democracies inCentral and Eastern Europe. Our findings from Bulgaria, Croatia,Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, and Slovakia showthat public support for a strong presidency with broad executivepowers is associated with support for autocratic governance,rather than simply with general support for the presidentialoffice. This highlights the potential for illiberal shifts towardstrongman rule in semi-presidential democracies where thepresident holds capacity for significant power.

This study examines the dynamics of social trust and its interaction with different fears during the COVID-19 pandemic, using a three-wave longitudinal dataset from Sweden (2020-2022). We investigate the stability of social trust across different phases of the pandemic and assess the impact of health, economic, and resource scarcity fears on changes in social trust over time. Our findings suggest that social trust remained relatively stable, supporting theories that view it as an enduring trait. In addition, the study identified significant bidirectional relationships: higher health fears were associated with lower trust in the early stages of the pandemic, while fears of resource scarcity had a more pronounced effect in the later stages. Conversely, individuals with higher levels of social trust were less likely to experience heightened fears, although this protective effect diminished over time. In addition, factors such as education, trust in institutions and satisfaction with government communication positively influenced social trust. These findings highlight the complex interplay between social trust and fear, providing insights into how societies can maintain cohesion during crises and informing policies for effective crisis communication and management.

This Special Issue explores the causes, patterns and consequences of presidential activism, defined as the presidents’ use of their formal powers and their attempts to influence politics through informal channels. Examining ‘going public’ strategies, the influence exerted by presidents through informal and formal coordination mechanisms, links to political parties and foreign policy leadership, it argues that presidential activism shapes intra-executive relations, enabling presidents to wield influence beyond their constitutional powers. Presidential activism is facilitated by the presidents’ popularity and role as head of state, particularly in less stable political contexts. These findings underline the need to investigate further various channels of presidential activism and how the citizens and media react to it, both during normal times and crises.

This article seeks to explain variations in presidential activism in semi-presidential countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Africa is one of the continents where semi-presidentialism is most prevalent, but the dynamics of intra-executive relations are severely understudied. The four case studies discussed here—the Democratic Republic of Congo, Niger, Cabo Verde, and São Tomé e Príncipe—belong to the premier-presidential subtype. In this exploratory study, we aim to examine how institutional dimensions of premier-presidentialism interact with contextual factors to explain variations in presidential activism among Sub-Saharan African countries. In addition to fundamental contextual differences among the two pairs of countries, francophone and lusophone, there are specific institutional factors associated with the design and operation of premier-presidentialism that contribute to greater presidential activism in the two francophone cases. Taken together, these contextual and institutional factors skew effective executive power heavily toward the president in our francophone countries. We also find that the degree of political institutionalization matters for the impact of presidential activism on intra-executive conflict and government policymaking capacity. The article increases our understanding of the operation of semi-presidentialism in this understudied region, underscoring the importance of both contextual and constitutional factors for explaining variations in presidential activism in Africa.

This study examines the relationship between citizens' satisfaction with government COVID-19 communication and management (SWCCM) and institutional trust. By employing a longitudinal approach, using three-wave panel data from Sweden from 2020 to 2022, the study addresses the current lack of research on the interplay between SWCCM and institutional trust across different stages of a societal crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic. The results show that SWCCM increased slightly over the pandemic period, while trust in institutions slightly decreased. The study also finds that changes in SWCCM predict changes in trust in institutions, suggesting that increased satisfaction with communication and management is associated with increased trust in institutions. Additionally, we find that higher initial levels of SWCCM contribute to a faster decline in trust over time. However, no evidence supports the idea that initial trust in institutions predicts changes in SWCCM. This suggests a unidirectional relationship where SWCCM is a key driver of institutional trust during a crisis. Overall, the study uncovers intriguing dynamics in the relationship between SWCCM and trust over time, and it emphasizes the significance of effective and consistent communication and management in maintaining and boosting public trust during crisis.

The French term ‘cohabitation’ is commonly used to describe situations in semi-presidential systems where the prime minister and the president represent different political parties. The present contribution sets out to test to what extent cohabitation affects the powers of the president both in dual executives with popularly elected presidents and in systems with indirectly elected presidents. The purpose is also to assess to what extent the relationship between cohabitation and presidential powers is affected by whether cohabitation is broadly or narrowly defined. Empirically, the study is extensive in time and space. The research population consists of all democratic republics with a separate president and prime minister during the time period 1850–2022. The results show that presidential powers are reduced in times of cohabitation, but this relationship is detected primarily in semi-presidential systems with popularly elected presidents and when cohabitation is broadly defined.

Following Russia's invasion, Ukraine exemplifies presidential leadership during full-scale war. This study examines executive coordination from Zelenskyi's mid-2019 election to the February 2022–July 2023 war period, using media sources and official data. It introduces three new leadership models – figurehead-leader, arbiter-management and leader-implementer – to capture evolving intra-executive relations in semi-presidential systems. Power centralisation around the president has accelerated, fitting the leader-implementer model. However, in accordance with the arbiter-manager model, a stricter division of labour, especially in domestic policy, is evident. Despite semi-presidentialism's perceived conflict-proneness, the study shows it can function efficiently and allow executive flexibility during significant crisis.

Varför utvecklas vissa länder men inte andra till väl fungerande demokratier? Är det ekonomisk utveckling, en viss uppsättning institutioner, en gynnsam medborgarkultur, civilsamhället, stödjande internationella förutsättningar eller samarbetande politiska eliter som avgör? Kan alla länder i världen bli demokratier, eller är vissa stater dömda att för alltid styras av auktoritära regimer?I denna uppdaterade tredje upplaga av Demokratiseringsprocesserpresenteras och granskas de viktigaste teoretiska och empiriska bidragen inom forskningen om demokratiseringsprocesser. Författarna introducerar centrala begrepp som demokrati, modernisering, transition, konsolidering och diffusion, samt visar hur forskningen har utvecklats från den tidiga efterkrigstiden fram till idag. Även demokratins tillbakagång och olika varianter av samtida auktoritära styrelseskick diskuteras. Boken inleds med ett förord av professor Li Bennich-Björkman.Demokratiseringsprocesser är särskilt lämplig för kurser i statsvetenskap, sociologi, internationella relationer, utvecklingsstudier, Europastudier samt freds- och konfliktforskning.

The Baltic presidents have in common that they are supposed to embody the ‘nation’ and to provide an image of their countries abroad. But can the president embody the people if “the people” itself is divided? In this paper, we will focus on public trust in the presidency between the majority and minority population in the Baltic states. Drawing on public opinion surveys, the aim is to examine the determinants of public trust in the presidential institution and support for the performance and principles of the political system as well identification with the political community itself. Among our findings, we conclude that ethnic or linguistic identity explains trust to a considerable degree, which suggests that trust is not only an expression of specific political support but also part of a more deep-seated, diffuse support.