What happens when an issue dominates political debate, monopolizing election campaigns, newspaper headlines, and collective fears? Instinctively, we would think that this increases democratic control: the more “salient” an issue is, the more citizens should be able to influence government decisions. But this is not the case. According to research by Livio Di Lonardo, professor in the Department of Social and Political Sciences at Bocconi University, and Tiberiu Dragu, of New York University, the opposite is true.

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