Editors’ Note

This Issue of Statistics, Politics and Policy hosts the first part of our Special Issue on Political Demography, the second part will appear in Issue 1/2024. Even though interactions between demographic factors and politics are frequent and powerful, the intersection of political science and population studies has for a long time remained under-researched. Gladly, this is now changing – a process we want to support through our Special Issue.

The selection of papers submitted to our open call was based on the long-established definition of the field: “Political demography is the study of the size, composition, and distribution of population in relation to both government and politics. It is concerned with the political consequences of population change, especially the effects of population change on the demands made upon governments, on the performance of governments, on the distribution of political power within states, and on the distribution of national power among states. It also considers the political determinants of population change, especially the political causes of the movement of people, the relationship of various population configurations to the structure and functions of government, and public policies directed at affecting the size, composition, and distribution of populations” (Weiner 1971, p. 597; cited after Teitelbaum 2005, p. 719).

Although not explicitly mentioned, we argue that micro-level studies are also partially covered by the original definition and that they are needed to capture further forms of interactions between political and demographic factors; for example, regarding the impact of family policy measures on the fertility rate or to understand how individual reproductive choices impact political behavior. This level of analysis will be featured in our next Issue 01/24, in which we will publish the second array of papers that were submitted and accepted following our call on Political Demography.

In this Issue, the first featured article by Cincotta responds to recent critiques of the U.S. State Department’s inconsistent application of congressionally mandated foreign-aid restrictions following several successful coups d’état in countries receiving USAID foreign assistance. His demographic analysis shows a disproportionately high level of coup vulnerability among youthful countries. He thus argues to exempt USAID programs known to advance the age-structural transition (i.e. those that extend girls’ educational attainment or improve access to family planning) when restricting foreign aid.

Whilst some countries are thus facing challenges arising from youthful age structures, other countries such as Japan, China, Italy or Germany are facing rapid societal aging which impacts welfare and especially pension systems – a topic that will be discussed in the next Issue. However, changes in the age distribution can also influence political systems on a broader level by affecting the electoral power of different age groups. In countries with a shrinking share of young people and rising concerns regarding generational equity, researching youths’ political representation gains importance. The novel dataset Kurz & Ettensperger present in their research note enables studies on party-level factors influencing youth representation in parliaments.

In addition to these Political Demography papers, this Issues hosts articles covering the impact of digitalization on the quality and availability of public services in Ukraine (Kniazieva, Kazanska, Orochovska, Tsymbalenko & Dergach) and internally generated funds of the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly of Ghana (Akurugu & Takora).

The first of these two articles deals with the impact of digitalization on the quality and availability of public services in Ukraine, exploring its impact on service quality and availability. The study aims to analyze the progress and potential of digitization in public services in Ukraine, comparing it with successful examples in Estonia. The research seeks to identify best practices and address existing gaps and challenges in digitalizing public services. Furthermore, the article utilizes various methods, including a comprehensive literature review, analysis of academic articles, government reports, and quantitative data from primary sources such as surveys and databases.

The paper of Akurugu and Takora looks at factors that affect internally generated funds of the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly using factor and confirmatory factor analysis. The study involved 403 categories of respondents using probability and non-probability sampling techniques. The results confirm a four-factor structure model to depict the observed data. The factor analysis revealed that the four factors that affect internally generated funds in the metropolis are revenue mobilization, effectiveness and efficiency of revenue collectors, revenue monitoring and utilization, and specific tools deployed for revenue mobilization.