Giorgio Malet

Together with @jellekoedam.bsky.social, @tinepaulsen.bsky.social, and @nicolaiberk.bsky.social, we brought together an amazing group of researchers doing exciting work here in Zurich — and it turned into a super fun, engaging workshop. Huge thanks to everyone who joined and made it so special!

Full Conference Overview_EPSA.2025.xlsx

🚨EPSA 2025 friends, Program Committee co-chair here....

We still have a few great panels missing discussants!!

**Details below: 1/n**

PLEASE RETWEET AND CONSIDER DISCUSSING :)

docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

if you are able to assist with any of these roles please email: info@epsanet.org ASAP

Thanks a lot for the excellent comments, Ruben!

Great tribute to Hanspeter Kriesi's impressive research career now happening at the European University Institute. @eui-sps.bsky.social @eui-eu.bsky.social

Brexit has featured prominently in the Swiss debate about CH-EU relations. Here we provide a more systematic study, using panel data to study changes in attitudes over time.

🚨 New book alert!

Policy Preparation Inside the European Commission is out with OUP @oxfordacademic.bsky.social

It’s about the behind-the-scenes stage of EU policymaking that shapes everything—yet rarely gets the spotlight: how the Commission prepares its proposals.

Link: doi.org/10.1093/9780...

🚨3-Year Postdoc Position in Zurich @ipz.bsky.social

❓Political implications of labor market transformation

Plenty of flexibility, no teaching obligations, great research environment in an highly livable city.

Deadline: May 18, 2025.

tinyurl.com/postdoczurich

#polisky #poliscijobs #psjminfo

Image of a building of the University of Bremen with the text "Summer School for Women in Political Methodology" and "20 to 26 July at the University of Bremen" writen on it.

🚨 Join us for the next edition Summer School for Women* in Political Methodology in Bremen 🚨

Open to PhD students and early career scholars Fully-funded places available for applicants, deadline 1st of May 📅 summerschoolwpm.org

There have been many "new cleavage" articles in the 1990s and 2000s, but I have always found this particular one to be the most insightful and prescient. 👇

Responding to Unilateral Challenges to International Institutions Abstracts. How do international institutions respond to unilateral challenges by its member states, such as non-compliance, blocking of reforms, renegotiat

Every once in a while, we write articles we truly care about.

This is one of them, and I am so happy and proud to see it published at ISQ:

Average support for further European integration of citizens (blue line, based on GAM with cubic regression splines) and positive orientation towards European integration of political parties (black dots and red line, based on a local polynomial regression) as functions of left-right self-placement of the citizens and general left-right party positions as estimated by experts. Originally, party positions on European integration are scored on a 1-to-7 scale, which has been rescaled from 0 to 10 to match the public opinion data. Data: ESS Wave 11 (2023), CHES (2024).

How do attitudes to 🇪🇺 European integration relate to political ideology and policy preferences?

A major update of my study:
- I added the latest 2023 ESS data for citizens and 2024 CHES data for parties
- I built an app to explore these relationships across datasets, indicators, years & countries

Very happy that my paper has just been published at @apsrjournal.bsky.social!

Do insurgents help or hurt genocide targets? Contrary to common belief, I find that insurgent presence reduced Jewish victimisation during the Holocaust in France.

Here's what I discovered 👇

1/6

News from the DISINTEGRATION project:

In a new working paper, @giorgiomalet.bsky.social, @tommccraehunter.bsky.social, @scherzinger.bsky.social and I find that how people view the EU is influenced by what kind of EU policies the media are focusing on and how this chimes with people‘s preferences.

Abstract: How does anti-immigrant rhetoric by mainstream politicians affect norms of tolerance? How does this compare to similar statements made by radical-right politicians? Drawing on experimental evidence, we find that statements by mainstream politicians lead to more norm erosion than similar statements by radical-right politicians. Subsample analyses suggests that this is because statements by mainstream-right politicians erode norm perceptions of right-wing individuals, while those by radical-right politicians induce backlash among left-wing individuals, who hold closer to the norm in place. The latter effect (backlash by the left) disappears when similar statements are made by mainstream right politicians. We argue that this difference occurs because mainstream politicians represent the views of a larger part of the population or have a higher status. Our results highlight the pivotal role of mainstream politicians in enforcing or eroding democratic norms, and that similar political statements can have different effects depending on their sender.

Very happy that our paper (w/ @dziblatt.bsky.social & E Dinas) has been accepted @bjpols.bsky.social .

We've seen the center right increasingly adopt far-right rhetoric.

Our experiment in 🇩🇪 finds that this erodes anti-prejudice norms *more* than when the far-right employs similar rhetoric.

1/3

How should we study party polarization in Europe?

Happy to share that our paper on *multidimensional* polarization is now out @bjpols.bsky.social! (more 👇)

Understanding Preferences over Borders Abstract. The governance of international borders has evolved into a contentious issue of political competition along the cosmopolitan-nationalistic divide

we talk about borders all the time, but how do citizens think about them?

pretty cool article by my (former) @ethzurich.bsky.social colleagues @ronjasczepanski.bsky.social, @giorgiomalet.bsky.social and Jana Lipps based on survey research

academic.oup.com/isq/article/...

Understanding Preferences over Borders Abstract. The governance of international borders has evolved into a contentious issue of political competition along the cosmopolitan-nationalistic divide

With the amazing Jana Lipps and @giorgiomalet.bsky.social we have a new publication in ISQ! We explore and theorize citizens’ preferences for border securing policies using open-ended survey responses and a conjoint experiment academic.oup.com/isq/article/...

Very excited to present my latest work tmr with @giorgiomalet.bsky.social on the political behaviour of farmers in times of growing environmental regulations

‼️ Hiring ‼️

Two (!) positions in my group at @ipz.bsky.social in Zurich

📣 1 postdoc position (3+3 years)
📣 1 PhD position (3,5 years)

Application deadline in early March.

Job ads & details:
tinyurl.com/3p6yhptk

We are an international and friendly department with excellent working conditions

A new regime divide? Democratic backsliding, attitudes towards democracy and affective polarization Partisan-based affective polarization has been posited as a key explanation for citizens' tolerance towards democratic backsliding, with voters more likely to overlook democratic violations conducted....

New paper 🚨with Natasha Wunsch in EJPR
A new regime divide? Democratic backsliding, attitudes towards democracy and affective polarization

We theorize & empirically explore how democratic backsliding may shape an affective divide between government & opposition supporters
doi.org/10.1111/1475...

Can a public wealth transfer to young people reduce inequality?

New article out in the Journal of European Social Policy with Andreas Thiemann, Leire Salazar and @josenoguerauab.bsky.social!

🧵 Thread 👇

International organizations in national parliamentary debates - The Review of International Organizations This data article introduces IOParlspeech, an original dataset of over 600,000 statements on international organizations (IOs) in parliamentary debates in six countries between 1990 and 2018. We expla...

What a nice way to start work in the new year:

Tom Hunter’s and my article introducing a new dataset on how IOs are discussed in parliaments just came out in RIO, as part of a special issue on domestic politics and IOs edited by @reneebowen.bsky.social, Lawrence Broz & @cjschneider.bsky.social

This is a really cool paper, which I recommend to those interested in public opinion in IR, IO's, and legitimacy.

https://shorturl.at/zQ8bJ

New paper published @ajpseditor.bsky.social

Showing that reduced access to public services fuelled far right support in 🇮🇹

Existing work on far right highlights globalization & migration grievances, what about people’s experiences with the state?

We use 🇮🇹 reform to find out

shorturl.at/zQ8bJ

Farmers are protesting in Westminster, what might the political consequences be?

Our research on farmer protests in 🇳🇱 provides some clues.

osf.io/preprints/os...

Bottom line: due to popularity of farmers + media bias, this likely creates major political headache for Starmer government.

🧵

Promising news for the EU electoral connection! 🗳️🇪🇺

Our study on the 2024 EP election shows that voters are engaging with information relevant to the European Parliament's actual powers.

A fruitful discussion on the rise of the far right makes a great final chord of this ERC project LOSS, led by @catherinedevries.bsky.social at Bocconi. Happy to be a part of it!

The takeaway? Public opinion has exerted a constraining effect on mainstream party positions (@liesbethooghe.bsky.social). However, salience strategies seem to have provided a useful tool to circumvent public dissent in a period of intensified cooperation at the EU level.

Based on original time-series data of party discourse and voter preferences in France, Italy and the United Kingdom (1992-2016), we find that mainstream parties often aligned with public sentiment on Europe without increasing the topic's prominence in their discourse.

We argue that mainstream parties, when faced with divisive issues, might choose to downplay their stances while still aligning them with shifts in public opinion.