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Introduction HIV self‐testing (HIVST) has the potential to increase uptake of HIV testing among untested populations in sub‐Saharan Africa and is on the brink of scale‐up. However, it is unclear to what extent HIVST would be supported by stakeholders, what policy frameworks are in place and how variations between contexts might influence country‐preparedness for scale‐up. This qualitative study assessed the perceptions of HIVST among stakeholders in three sub‐Saharan countries. Methods Fifty‐four key informant interviews were conducted in Kenya (n=16), Malawi (n=26) and South Africa (n=12) with government policy makers, academics, activists, donors, procurement specialists, laboratory practitioners and health providers. A thematic analysis was conducted in each country and a common coding framework allowed for inter‐country analysis to identify common and divergent themes across contexts. Results Respondents welcomed the idea of an accurate, easy‐to‐use, rapid HIV self‐test which could increase testing across all populations. High‐risk groups, such as men, Men who have sex with men (MSM), couples and young people in particular, could be targeted through a range of health facility and community‐based distribution points. HIVST is already endorsed in Kenya, and political support for scale‐up exists in South Africa and Malawi. However, several caveats remain. Further research, policy and ensuing guidelines should consider how to regulate, market and distribute HIVST, ensure quality assurance of tests and human rights, and critically, link testing to appropriate support and treatment services. Low literacy levels in some target groups would also need context‐specific consideration before scale up. World Health Organization (WHO) policy and regulatory frameworks are needed to guide the process in those areas which are new or specific to self‐testing. Conclusions Stakeholders in three HIV endemic sub‐Saharan countries felt that HIVST will be an important complement to existing community and facility‐based testing approaches if accompanied by the same essential components of any HIV testing service, including access to accurate information and linkages to care. While there is an increasingly positive global policy environment regarding HIVST, several implementation and social challenges limit scale‐up. There is a need for further research to provide contextual and operational evidence that addresses concerns and contributes to normative WHO guidance.

National pride is a group-based and sometimes collective emotion that people feel toward their nation-state. It is often measured by the general national pride item in cross-national surveys. Czechs are among those nations whose members express low levels of general national pride in comparison with those of other nations in the European Union. Scholars debate the extent to which general national pride is influenced by social desirability or other identifiable reasons. The goal of this article is to identify the specific reasons that influence general national pride in the Czech Republic. Using data from the October 2015 round of the survey Naše společnost, I examine what makes Czechs proud of their country. Among frequently mentioned reasons for national pride are the country’s beauty, nature, cities, and history, as well as respondents’ family and friends. Results of an ordinal regression analysis based on the European Values Study 2008 data confirm that general national pride is significantly influenced by political interest, confidence in government and satisfaction with the development of democracy, happiness, and social trust.

In the study of politics, many theoretical accounts assume that we are experiencing a ‘crisis of democracy’, with declining levels of political trust. While some empirical studies support this account, others disagree and report ‘trendless fluctuations’. We argue that these empirical ambiguities are based on analytical confusion: whether trust is declining depends on the institution, country, and period in question. We clarify these issues and apply our framework to an empirical analysis that is unprecedented in geographic and temporal scope: we apply Bayesian dynamic latent trait models to uncover underlying trends in data on trust in six institutions collated from 3,377 surveys conducted by 50 projects in 143 countries between 1958 and 2019. We identify important differences between countries and regions, but globally we find that trust in representative institutions has generally been declining in recent decades, whereas trust in ‘implementing’ institutions has been stable or rising.

Populist attitudes are generally measured in surveys through three necessary and non-compensatory elements of populism, namely anti-elitism, people-centrism, and Manicheanism. Using Comparative Study of Electoral Systems Module 5 (2016–2020) data for 30 countries, we evaluate whether this approach explains voting for populist parties across countries in Asia, Europe and the Americas. We show that the existing scales of populist attitudes effectively explain voting for populists in countries where populist leaders and parties are in opposition but fail to explain voting for populist parties in countries where they are in power . We argue that current approaches assume “the elite” to mean “politicians”, thus failing to capture attitudes towards “non-political elites” often targeted by populists in office—in particular, journalists, academics/experts, bureaucrats, and corporate business leaders. The results reveal limits to the usefulness of existing survey batteries in cross-national studies of populism and emphasize the need to develop approaches that are more generalizable across political and national contexts.

The recent increase in partisan media has generated interest in whether such outlets polarize viewers. I draw on theories of motivated reasoning to explain why partisan media polarize viewers, why these programs affect some viewers much more strongly than others, and how long these effects endure. Using a series of original experiments, I find strong support for my theoretical expectations, including the argument that these effects can still be detected several days postexposure. My results demonstrate that partisan media polarize the electorate by taking relatively extreme citizens and making them even more extreme. Though only a narrow segment of the public watches partisan media programs, partisan media's effects extend much more broadly throughout the political arena.

COVID-19 has emerged as one of the deadliest and most disruptive events in recent human history. Drawing from political science and psychological theories, we examine the effects of daily confirmed cases in a country on citizens’ support for the political leader through the first 120 d of 2020. Using three unique datasets which comprise daily approval ratings of head of government (n = 1,411,200) across 11 world leaders (Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and weekly approval ratings of governors across the 50 states in the United States (n = 912,048), we find a strong and significant positive association between new daily confirmed and total confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country and support for the heads of government. These analyses show that political leaders received a boost in approval in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, these findings suggest that the previously documented “rally ‘round the flag” effect applies beyond just intergroup conflict.

No factor appears more powerful in explaining how individuals evaluate political information and form political preferences than partisanship. Yet, virtually all work on the effects of partisanship on preference formation neglects the crucial role of social settings. In this study, I examine how social settings can fundamentally change the influence of partisanship on preferences. I demonstrate that, in fact, social settings exert an independent influence over preference formation—one that is even larger than the influence of partisan ambivalence. The central implication of these findings is that, going forward, we cannot fully explore how citizens apply their partisanship in evaluating political information without also accounting for the social settings in which individuals find themselves.

Since 2012, some scholars, both Chinese and foreign, have argued that China’s assertive foreign policy is doomed to fail. Nevertheless, after examining China’s foreign relations in the last two years, this paper finds that China has experienced improved relations rather than deteriorating ones. In comparison with the strategy of keeping a low profile (KLP), the strategy of striving for achievement (SFA) shows more efficiency in shaping a favorable environment for China’s national rejuvenation. The author applies the theory of moral realism to explaining the role of the SFA strategy and argues that morality can increase both international political strength and the political legitimacy of a rising power. The key difference between the KLP and the SFA is that the former focuses on economic gains and the latter seeks to strengthen political support. That is the reason that the SFA values the role of morality and the KLP does not. Due to these different goals, the SFA strategy differs from the KLP strategy in aspects of tenets, general layouts, working approaches, and methods. So far, the SFA has achieved progress beyond people’s expectation from Xi Jinping in 2012. Xi’s strong leadership may become a new case suitable for illustrating the theory of moral realism.

Many rebel organizations receive significant assistance from external governments, yet the reasons why some rebels attract foreign support while others do not is poorly understood. We analyze factors determining external support for insurgent groups from a principal-agent perspective. We focus on both the supply side, that is, when states are willing to support insurgent groups in other states, and the demand side, that is, when groups are willing to accept such support, with the conditions that this may entail. We test our hypotheses using new disaggregated data on insurgent groups and foreign support. Our results indicate that external rebel support is influenced by characteristics of the rebel group as well as linkages between rebel groups and actors in other countries. More specifically, we find that external support is more likely for moderately strong groups where support is more likely to be offered and accepted, in the presence of transnational constituencies, international rivalries, and when the government receives foreign support.

Previous authors have found greater political support among electoral winners than losers, but they define winners and losers at a single time point, and employ a dichotomous categorization that neglects possible variations within each group. This study considers both the past history of winning or losing and the impact of ideological distance from the government on a political support indicator – satisfaction with democracy. Using a multilevel model covering thirty-one countries, the authors show that the relationship between winner/loser status and satisfaction with democracy has a marginal dynamic nature and a policy content. Among present losers, previous experience of victory assuaged dissatisfaction, while among those presenting a consolidated ‘winning’ record, only high ideological proximity to the current government boosted political support.