Lena Stephan

Freu mich auf dich in Greifi ✨✨✨✨

Erst drei preisgekrönte Buchhandlungen, den Preis und die Jury beschädigen, und sich dann weder der Verantwortung noch der Kritik stellen: Das System Wolfram Weimer at work. Und wer noch nicht für die Klagen der drei Buchhandlungen der Herzen gespendet hat: lesen-hilft.org

🧵 Excited to share my new book w/ @hildecoffe.bsky.social : "Different and Unequal? Gendered Political Participation in European Democracies" — with @universitypress.cambridge.org Elements in Gender and Politics (open access!)

TLDR? Women don't just participate less. They participate *differently*

@christinastremming.bsky.social and I are very happy to present our paper on party reactions to external shocks. Main findings : Foreign policy events restructure party politics! You can find the full paper here: doi.org/10.1080/0964...

More details below.

BJPolS abstract of a scholarly article discussing the influence of legislators' gender on the questioning behaviors in parliamentary activities.

From January 2026 -

Gender Bias in Legislative Oversight: Do Parliamentarians Control Women Ministers More Tightly than Men Ministers? - cup.org/45Rm9Z6

- @corinnakroeber.bsky.social, @lenastephan.bsky.social, @sarahdingler.bsky.social & @camilamontero.bsky.social

#OpenAccess

NEW PUBLICATION
“How the Media Cordon Sanitaire Crumbles: Lessons from Germany” now out in @prxjournal.bsky.social
🔓 doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2026.2621808
I’m very happy that this paper is out – this project is particularly important to me.

Gender Quota Laws and Women in Cabinets 36 Pages Posted: 16 Dec 2024 Last revised: 11 Feb 2026 Tiffany Barnes University of Texas at Austin Giulia Venturini University of Strathclyde Ana Weeks University of Bath Date Written: December 06, 2024 Abstract Do legislative gender quotas increase women’s presence in cabinets? Women remain underrepresented in political leadership worldwide. As a remedy, over 80 countries have adopted gender quotas, requiring parties to nominate or elect a minimum share of women. But can quotas have effects beyond the positions they directly target? We argue that quotas increase the presence of women in executive cabinets by expanding the pool of experienced female legislators. Using a global dataset (168 countries) from 1990 to 2021, we find gender quotas increase the share of women ministers by 15 percent relative to the average baseline–including increases in both high- and lowprestige portfolios. Consistent with a supply-side mechanism, effects are largest in parliamentary democracies—where ministers are often selected from parliament—and in countries that experienced the greatest increases in women’s legislative representation post-quota. The findings suggest quotas can generate meaningful spillover effects at the highest levels of government.

“I am delighted to conditionally accept your article for publication in The Journal of Politics.”

🥳

We find that gender quota laws for legislatures also increase the share of women in cabinets.

w @gventurini.bsky.social @tiffanydbarnes.bsky.social

dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn...

Für Medienschaffende ist der Umgang mit der extremen Rechten zugegebenermaßen nicht immer einfach. Aber ein Lifestyle-Interview mit Chrupalla sprengt jeden journalistischen Rahmen. Hier wird nicht nur eine Plattform geboten, sondern extrem rechte Politik aktiv normalisiert. 🤯

Well deserved also! This went straight to my syllabus for next semester:)

Fixed it for you ✨

(Also, super proud of you my favorite conference buddy)

🚨 So excited about our new paper in @BJPS: h7.cl/1iliZ! We (Corinna, Lena, Camila, Sarah) analyze how gender shapes the extent to which ministers are scrutinized by parliament.

🚨 So excited about our new paper in @bjpols.bsky.social : h7.cl/1iliZ! Together with @corinnakroeber.bsky.social, @lenastephan.bsky.social, @camilamontero.bsky.social, we analyze how gender shapes the extent to which ministers are scrutinized by parliament.

BJPolS abstract of a scholarly article discussing the influence of legislators' gender on the questioning behaviors in parliamentary activities.

NEW -

Gender Bias in Legislative Oversight: Do Parliamentarians Control Women Ministers More Tightly than Men Ministers? - https://cup.org/45Rm9Z6

- @corinnakroeber.bsky.social, @lenastephan.bsky.social, @sarahdingler.bsky.social & @camilamontero.bsky.social

#OpenAccess

Targeting the cereal woman: Campaigns, gender, and Scottish independence Abstract. How do political campaigns construct and mobilize voter identities in high-stakes constitutional contests? This article examines the 2014 Scottis

Delighted to share my first single-authored article, now published in Parliamentary Affairs:
“Targeting the cereal woman: Campaigns, gender & Scottish independence”

🆓 Open access: tinyurl.com/85cxsefm
@hansardsociety.bsky.social @academic.oup.com

#GenderPolitics #BritishPolitics (🧵👇)

This looks super interesting, Emilia! Looking forward to reading it :)

🚨 Postdoc in Comparative Politics/Public Opinion (2 years)

We’re hiring a 100% Postdoc at the University of Greifswald.

✨ What makes this job special: Two full years to focus on research (no teaching, no admin overload) embedded into an International Research Training Group

📢♀️ 'Resilience in Action: A Toolkit for Feminist Strategies in Times of Backlash' is out now!

🧰⚒️ Free to use and share. May this support many of you in pushing back against backlash.

💯⚡Proud of the Push*Back*Lash team @aissr.bsky.social

⬇️👇Download here #Toolkit2
pushbacklash.eu/dissemination/

1/ Does growing up poor always lead to political apathy?

Very happy to share my first paper published (open access) in @electoralstudies.bsky.social, where I show that parents' influence mitigates the poverty gap in participation, while economic mobility does not.

🔗 shorturl.at/p5Bac

Everywhere you vote, you always take the weather with you: the effects of local temperature anomalies on Green party voting Does local exposure to weather extremes and anomalies influence voting behavior? Previous research has linked extreme weather events, temperature anomalies, and attitudes toward climate change. How...

📢 Very happy that my first single-authored paper found its home at @environmentalpol.bsky.social 🌱 I am beyond thankful to all the fantastic people who gave me feedback and supported me along the way! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... (1/5)🧵

Congrats, Dylan (and Christian & Marius) - seems to have been one great bachelor‘s thesis :) looking forward to reading it!

Staying Power: Unpacking Seniority as a Gendered Informal Institution in Parliament Abstract. Political seniority—commonly understood as accumulated parliamentary tenure—is an underexamined informal institution that structures access to po

New article by @rmuriaas.bsky.social and I: While seniority can benefit all parliamentarians and serve as a powerful resource, it does not confer power equally. Women face structural barriers to accessing seniority, and even when they attain it, their legitimacy and influence remains contested.

We're looking for a colleague (postdoc) 📢 @politikuhh.bsky.social
3+3 years
Doing your own research while teaching 2.5 courses per semester
Research agenda with links to our team (democracy, digital politics, political competition/behaviour)
DL 🗓️ 05/01
stellen.uni-hamburg.de/jobposting/6...

Cover page of the article. "Affective States: Cultural and Affective Polarization in a Multilevel-Multiparty System" by Dylan Paltra, Marius Sältzer and Christian Stecker. "Affective Polarization—the growing mutual dislike among partisan groups—has been identified as a major concern in democracies. Although both economic and cultural ideological divides contribute to ideological polarization, their affective consequences can differ. This paper argues that cultural polarization becomes especially consequential when mobilized by far-right parties. Using data from 116 elections in Germany’s 16 states (1990-2023), we combine more than 550 state-level manifestos with more than 150,000 survey responses to examine how party polarization translates into voter affect. Our analyses show that both economic and cultural polarization increase affective divides, but cultural disagreements fuel hostility only in the presence of the Alternative for Germany (AfD). Acting as a cultural entrepreneur, the AfD amplifies the emotional impact of cultural divisions such as immigration, employing affective rhetoric and provoking strong rejection from other parties and voters. These findings highlight the catalytic role of far-right parties in transforming ideological competition into affective polarization."

🚨Publication Alert!
My first first-author publication with @msaeltzer.bsky.social and @pluggedchris.bsky.social is out in @polbehavior.bsky.social, which began as my bachelor's thesis. We study how party polarization shapes affective polarization—with a particularly important role of the AfD. (1/7)🧵

🔔Job Alert 🔔
Thrilled to share that @stefaniebailer.bsky.social and I have been awarded 1.5 million CHF in SNSF funding for our new project: “Electoral choice: Which role does legislators’ quality play?”
We’re recruiting 1 postdoc and 2 PhD candidates to join us in Basel and Geneva!

Might as well take a train to Amsterdam to take you up on that offer ☕️

📢 Call for Papers and Panels: join our section on Gender, Sexuality and Political Careers at the #ECPG2026!

We invite contributions on the gendered architecture of political careers across elected, appointed & informal roles - whether theoretical, empirical, critical, or methodological.

With the deadline extension you still have a few days left to send us your abstracts for the #ECPG26 Methods Section!

We are looking forward to reading your work :)

@ecpr.bsky.social @ecprgender.bsky.social
@nclpolitics.bsky.social

#polsci, #PoliticalScience, #Methodology, #Researchmethods

Sexism and the Gender Gap in Support for the Radical Right Using survey data from Spain we show that the gender gap in the probability of voting for the radical-right party Vox is mainly due to men having higher levels of modern sexism than women. We find ...

We have a new paper out with @gricoc.bsky.social in @jwpp.bsky.social (this time I swear I am going to post the right link): www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Job Alert! We are hiring two post-docs (full time, 4+ years) in our project SCEPTIC - Social, Computational and Ethical Premises of Trust and Informational Cohesion with @annanosthoff.bsky.social @guzoch.bsky.social and Prof. Andreas Peters (uol.de/informatik/s...)

💖