🚨 Join us for the next edition Summer School for Women* in Political Methodology in Mannheim 🚨
7 days of hands-on advanced methods + networking for PhDs, postdocs & early-career researchers.
Free of charge (limited travel support).
Deadline 1 March 2026: summerschoolwpm.org
#methodsky #polisky
Although Condorcet winners are by definition the majority-preferred option, they frequently do not secure the largest share of votes. Nevertheless, they enter government with remarkable consistency, doing so in roughly 90% of cases across electoral system types.
Using data from the CSES we show that Condorcet-winner parties are often centrally located within the party system, but they are not necessarily large parties. Most often, they are social democrats, while nationalist parties are most often Condorcet losers.
New article , together with Salvatore Barbaro, in Public Choice: On the prevalence of Condorcet's Paradox.
Analyzing 253 national elections, we show that Condorcet Paradoxes virtually never occur. This raises an important question: who is the Condorcet winner?
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
🌟 PHD FELLOWSHIP ALERT! 🌟
I’m hiring 1 PhD fellow for my ERC project ECONENGAGE (@ Gothenburg 🇸🇪)! Starting 09/26! Great PhD community + int'l & supportive environment + FUN city. 💰for conferences + workshops! Lots of mentoring & career development opportunities! Deadline Jan 29th. Please apply!
Glückwunsch Thomas!!
It encompasses formal modelling of party competition, survey and lab experiments, as well as an exit poll at a German state election.
The project explores ranked PR voting systems, asking whether it has the potential to encourage moderation, reduce incentives for divisive campaigning, and still ensure meaningful representation for minority groups.
Find the job ads below:
tinyurl.tools/54f3ff14
tinyurl.tools/40000e7c
Happy to share that the German Research Foundation DFG funds my new project: “Countering Polarization: The Borda count as a basis for proportional representation”. I am recruiting 2 PhD candidates to join me in Hannover as of March 2026 or later! Feel free to reach out!
A screenshot of the CfP for SekMethoden 2026
🚨 CfP: SekMethoden 2026
🗓️ March 12-13, 2026
🗺️ Hannover, Germany
⏰ DL Dec 07, 2025
👉 Apply here: sosci.sowi.uni-mannheim.de/sekmethoden2...
👥 @gessler.bsky.social, @lukrudolph.bsky.social, @donyhu.bsky.social, Jona Baumert, Morten Harmening and I look forward to your submissions!
@dpzollinger.bsky.social and I are thrilled "Cleavage Politics in Western Democracies" is out as an SI at @wepsocial.bsky.social!
Its papers explore the foundations of the cleavage pitting new left against radical right parties, and how it compares to the classic cleavages of Lipset & Rokkan:
🧵⬇️
❗ Hier das working paper zu diesem Thema von Marc Ratkovic, Thomas Gschwend, @wendering.bsky.social, Kevin Bauer, @annakurella.bsky.social, Oliver Rittmann, @melinscribe.bsky.social, @nschwitter.bsky.social:
www.researchgate.net/publication/...
I AM HIRING 2 postdocs (5 years) in my @erc.europa.eu project "The Politics of the Latent Educational Cleavage" at @goetheuni.bsky.social @infer-frankfurt.bsky.social!
German call: www.fb03.uni-frankfurt.de/170856927.pdf
English call: www.goethe-university-frankfurt.de/170858269.pdf
Please share
Exciting news: as I’ve started a new chapter as an assistant professor at Leibniz Universität Hannover, my postdoc position at MZES is now open!
It’s a fantastic opportunity for recent PhDs: wonderful colleagues, excellent research infrastructure, and plenty of time to develop your own ideas.
Call for papers! The annual meeting of the @dvpw.bsky.social working group on Analytical Political Theory will take place on Oct 9-10, 2025 in Mainz. This year, we are particularly interested in papers on democratic process preferences!
theorie.politik.uni-mainz.de/files/2025/0...
Abstract of the paper "How education, generation and gender jointly structure green and radical right voting" by Armin Schäfer and Nils D. Steiner. Published online first in West European Politics.
Figure 1, displaying the voting for a green party by cohort and education.
Figure 2, displaying predicted probabilities and marginal effects of voting for a green party.
@arminschaefer.bsky.social & @nilssteiner.bsky.social:
👉Educational gaps have widened across cohorts
👉Concerning the greens, especially among women
👉Cleavage crystallizes with generational replacement
doi.org/10.1080/0140...
Part of SI "Cleavage Politics in Western Democracies"
#PoliSky #AcademicSky
Abstract of the article "Unfolding GAL-TAN: the multi-dimensional nature of public opinion in Western Europe" by Anna-Sophie Kurella and Milena Rapp. Published online first in West European Politics.
Figure 1, displaying the average structuring strength of latent conflicts across regions (north, central west, south).
@annakurella.bsky.social & @milenarapp.bsky.social show that public opinion on new cultural policy issues is not strongly aligned with preferences on traditional economic & moral policies.
doi.org/10.1080/0140...
Part of forthc. SI "Cleavage Politics in Western Democracies"
I celebrate the 80% of Germans who did not vote for the far right. Do not make 19.6% of German voters into "the" German people (again).
"The" German people don't exist! The German population is diverse and divided, but voted overwhelmingly for liberal democratic parties.
#BTW25 #GermanElection
This has been true for the entire existence of the AfD, but it is worth emphasizing again and again: Among German voters, the AfD is the most unpopular party.
Ich habe mit ntv über die Positionen der Parteien im aktuellen Wahlkampf gesprochen – von der Rolle von Wirtschaft, Immigration und Klimapolitik bis zum GAL-TAN-Cleavage. Und zum Schluss gab es noch einen Exkurs zum Chaos-Theorem!
www.n-tv.de/politik/Grue...
131 Politikwissenschaftler haben im Open Expert Survey 2025 die Positionen der Parteien zu wichtigen Themen eingeschätzt. Im Vergleich zum OES21 ist vor allem die Wichtigkeit von Migrationspolitik gestiegen.
Einen ausführlicheren Blick & die Pre-Release-Daten gibt es hier: oes25.de/OES25prerele...
Why would the CDU accommodate AfD policies, despite a plethora of research telling them not to?
My brilliant friend @philswatton.bsky.social wrote a fantastic, easy to understand piece on measurement: dysfunctionalprogramming.substack.com/p/measuremen...
Zur Bundestagswahl 2025 habe ich mit @pluggedchris.bsky.social, @annakurella.bsky.social
und @jocmuel.bsky.social das Tool #PartyCheck auf Basis der OES 2025 Parteipositionen entwickelt. Nach 15 Fragen bekommt ihr einen Match. Schaut doch mal rein! party-check.org
This supports Riker’s idea of heresthetics and issue entrepreneurship theory, but at the same time demonstrates that there is stability in real-world political competition.
Thus, I developed a model in which parties compete by taking position in a two-dimensional space and by simultaneously allocating their issue emphasis optimally. The results demonstrate that equilibria exist, and that they tend to be unique.
With this paper I seek to address a persistent gap in the formal literature on political competition: We know a lot about parties’ equilibrium policy positions, but not much about equilibrium salience levels.
New Article, open access!
doi.org/10.1177/0951...
🚨 Job Alert! 🚨
I’m looking for a postdoc to join my Emmy Noether project on the New Climate Divide! 🌍
🔍 It is a 3-year position with a likely extension for another 3 years & no teaching obligations
📄 Check out the job call: uni-heidelberg.de/md/politik/p...
Thanks for sharing! 🤝
