In this episode, I talk to Markus Wagner, who is Professor of Quantitative Party and Election Research at the University of Vienna. Our conversation will focus on his 2014 article “Left-Authoritarians and Policy Representation in Western Europe: Electoral Choice across Ideological Dimensions” The article (https://bit.ly/3fgtHJ4) is co-authored with Zoe Lefkofridi and Johanna Willmann. In the article, the authors investigate the electoral preferences of left-authoritarian voters in Western Europe. Left-authoritarian voters are those that hold left-wing economic preferences and favor for example ..read more

In this episode, I talk to Gary Marks who is Professor of Political Science at UNC-Chapel Hill. We discuss the work of Seymour Martin Lipset and focus on three main themes in Lipset’s body of work. We first discuss Lipset’s 1960 book Political Man, which includes a number of essays that have become classics of political sociology and political science more generally. Central themes of the book are the social requisites for democracy and the group bases of politics. Our second focus is on Lipset and Rokkan’s cleavage theory and the formation and transformation of party systems. In line with the ..read more

In this episode, I talk to Björn Bremer who is Senior Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies (MPIfG) in Cologne. We talk about his article “The ideational foundations of social democratic austerity in the context of the great recession” which is co-authored with Sean McDaniel and was published in the Socio-Economic Review in 2019. The article investigates the economic ideas that build the bases for the decision of social democratic parties to embrace austerity policies following the economic and financial crisis in 2008. Based on over 60 semi-structured interviews wi ..read more

In this episode, I talk to Rafaela Dancygier, who is Professor of Politics and Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. We talk about her book “Dilemmas of Inclusion” which was published in 2017 with Princeton University Press. The book investigates how and why political parties include Muslim candidates in Western Europe. Muslims have grown as a share of the electorate so parties have an incentive to appeal to them. However, many Muslims also hold values on cultural issues such as gender equality or LGBT rights that differ strongly from other electorates that parties want to ..read more

In this episode, I talk to Tamar Mitts who is Assistant Professor at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. We discuss her 2019 article “From Isolation to Radicalization: Anti-Muslim Hostility and Support for ISIS in the West” which was published in the American Political Science Review. The article investigates how anti-muslim hostility fuels jihadi radicalization and stated support for ISIS in 4 Western European countries. It analyzes social media data in order to measure radicalization and locate ISIS supporters. The article demonstrates that ISIS support is ..read more

In this episode, I talk to Liesbet Hooghe who is W.R Kenan Distinguished Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. We discuss her article “Cleavage theory meets Europe’s crises: Lipset, Rokkan, and the transnational cleavage”, which is co-authored with Gary Marks and was published in the Journal of European Public Policy in 2018. The article investigates if Lipset/Rokkan’s famous cleavage theory can help explain the transformation of the European political space in the past 40 years. It postulates that a new transnational cleavage has emerged that prima ..read more

In this episode, I talk to Sarah de Lange who is professor at the University of Amsterdam. We talk about her article “New Alliances: Why Mainstream Parties Govern with Radical Right-Wing Populist Parties” which was published in 2012 in Political Studies. In the article, Sarah applies theories of coalition formation to governments that formed with a radical right party. While these types of governments used to be quite rare, they have become increasingly common in Europe in the past 20 years. For parties of the mainstream right these coalitions provide an opportunity as an alternative to govern ..read more

In this episode I talk to Daniel Ziblatt who is Eaton Professor of the Science of Government at Harvard University.We discuss his 2018 book How Democracies Die co-authored with Steven Levitsky. (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/562246/how-democracies-die-by-steven-levitsky-and-daniel-ziblatt/) The book investigates how authoritarian leaders within democracies erode democratic norms and institutions and how democratic regimes eventually turn into autocratic ones. It argues that political parties play a key role for the stability of democracy as they act as gatekeepers against authoritar ..read more

In this episode we are changing the roles and Silja Häuserman, professor of political science at the University of Zurich takes over as the host. I discuss my article “The Electoral Appeal of Party Strategies in Postindustrial Societies: When Can the Mainstream Left Succeed?” which is co-authored with Markus Wagner and came out in the Journal of Politics in 2019. The article discusses different policy strategies of social democratic parties and their potential electoral appeal. The main hypothesis is that mainstream left parties need to appeal to educated middle class voters in order to be ele ..read more

In this episode, I talk to Herbert Kitschelt, who is George V. Allen Distinguished Professor of International Relations at Duke University and without a doubt one of the most influential contemporary scholars of political parties. We discuss his 1994 book “The Transformation of European Social Democracy”. In this book, Herbert explains how a second dimension of political preferences has become politicized since the late 1960s and how this has affected party competition but especially social democratic parties. Social democratic parties struggled to integrate the new demands of activists especi ..read more