Maarja Lühiste

The myth of compensatory effects: How party organisation shapes women's representation in dual-candidacy mixed electoral systems Electoral systems are widely recognised as important institutional determinants explaining women's political representation. Mixed-member proportional…

Ever wondered why Germany, in 2001 only the seventh country in the world after the Nordic ones and Netherlands to have more than 30% of MPs female, has since completed stagnated and been overtaken by 50-odd countries?

In this newly published paper, @maarja.bsky.social and I try to explain that.

Understanding Gender Differences in Legislatures and Beyond: Quantitative and Computational Approaches to Examining the Causes, Consequences, and Institutional Effects Joint Sessions of Workshops, 7 – 10 April 2026, University of Innsbruck

⚙️ #ecprjs26 Workshop directors 🎬 @maarja.bsky.social & @mtplk.bsky.social
💡 Seeks Papers examining how gender & sexuality shape democratic representation, political participation and power structures
✔️ @sgparliaments.bsky.social endorsed
⌛ Submit by 3 Dec buff.ly/YsJGQYo

#Polisky #CallforPapers

Events European Consortium for Political Research

Paper proposals for the @ecpr.bsky.social Joint Sessions, taking place in beautiful Innsbruck, April 7-10 2026, are now open. If you're working on an exciting gender paper using quants methods, please apply to our workshop: ecpr.eu/Events/Event... @mtplk.bsky.social @sgparliaments.bsky.social

Research article entitled "When Does Fame Not Matter? Examining Gender Differences in Politicians' Social Media Experiences" by Maarja Lühiste, Stiene Praet, Sebastian Adrian Popa, Yannis Theocharis, Pablo Barberá, Zoltán Fazekas and Joshua A. Tucker

🏅In one of our most read articles this week, "When Does Fame Not Matter? Examining Gender Differences in Politicians’ Social Media Experiences", @maarja.bsky.social & co-authors explore the dynamics of gender-based online incivility.

🌟Available #OpenAccess🌟

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@nclpolitics.bsky.social @hassfacultyncl.bsky.social

Politoloog: naisi on poliitikas nii vähe, sest neid pelgavad teised poliitikud, mitte Eesti valijad Kandidaati, keda nimekirjas ei ole, valida ei saa. Asjaolu, et Eestis ikka veel märksa vähem naisi poliitikas ilma teeb ei tulene valijate eelistustest, vaid erakondade poolt ette antud valikutest.

epl.delfi.ee/artikkel/120...
EPL published a leading article based on my research ahead of Estonia's local elections.
Disheartening that parties still disadvantage women candidates with nominations & list placement, but after 10+ years researching this, nice to see it break into mainstream media.

Celebrating 10 years in @nclpolitics.bsky.social (Newcastle) with a new staff card. Still can't believe I didn't lose it in all those years 😅

Naisi pelgavad erakonnad, mitte Eesti valijad - Feministeerium Politoloog Maarja Lühiste kirjutab, et Eesti naiste vähene esindatus poliitikas ei tulene valijate eelistustest, vaid erakondade pakutud menüüvalikutest

Politoloog @maarja.bsky.social kirjutab, et Eesti naiste vähene esindatus poliitikas ei tulene valijate eelistustest, vaid erakondade pakutud menüüvalikutest. Sest nagu restoranis ei saa tellida rooga, mida menüüs pole, nii ei saa ka valida kandidaati, keda nimekirjas ei ole.

Research article "When Does Fame Not Matter? Examining Gender Differences in Politicians’ Social Media Experiences" by Maarja Lühiste, Stiene Praet, Sebastian Adrian Popa, Yannis Theocharis, Pablo Barberá, Zoltán Fazekas and Joshua A. Tucker, Abstract begins: Past research alerts to the increasingly unpleasant climate surrounding public debate on social media. Female politicians, in particular, are reporting serious attacks targeted at them. Yet, research offers inconclusive insights regarding the gender gap in online incivility. This paper aims to address this gap by comparing politicians with varying levels of prominence and public status in different institutional contexts. Using a machine learning approach for analyzing over 23 million tweets addressed to politicians in Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States, we find little consistent evidence of a gender gap in the proportion of incivility.

📣Out on #FirstView 📣

In "When Does Fame Not Matter?" @maarja.bsky.social, Stiene Praet, Sebastian Adrian Popa, @yannistheocharis.bsky.social, Pablo Barberá, @zoltanfazekas.bsky.social & @jatucker.bsky.social conduct a cross-national study on online incivility.

polisky gendersky
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Women politicians receive more identity-based attacks on social media Women politicians in Europe receive uncivil tweets regardless of how known they are, new research led by Newcastle University has found.

Research led by @nclpolitics.bsky.social's @maarja.bsky.social reveals female politicians receive more identity-based attacks on social media than others in the profession.

Read the full article article here >> bit.ly/3GOr97K

We (@matildecer.bsky.social @nzwiener-collins.bsky.social and I) pulled off our small but mighty workshop, bridging boundaries between gender x politics subfield and quantitative methods 👧🏻📊

So grateful to @lmumuenchen.bsky.social and Fritz Thyssen Stiftung for making it possible 🤓

I'm hiring another postdoc (research-focused, for almost 5 years) for my @erc.europa.eu project on the educational cleavage!
I'm looking for someone with strong quantitative text-analysis skills (e.g. #NLP, #LLM, etc.) to study the role of political actors in cleavage formation.

@nclpolitics.bsky.social

This paper tested my resilience in ways I can't quite remember (or I have given up). Massive thanks to the amazing co-authors Stiene Praet, Sebastian Popa, @yannistheocharis.bsky.social, @zoltanfazekas.bsky.social, Pablo Barbera, @jatucker.bsky.social and to the many dedicated reviewers!!

Political culture and electoral rules may matter, too: German & Spanish politicians in our sample receive less incivility than their UK and US counterparts. And the incivility in less personalised systems - especially in Germany - is relatively 'polite' compared to the other countries in our sample.

We also find that women receive more identity-based attacks than male politicians.

Super excited (and relieved!) to see this paper finally published.
Both men and women politicians experience incivility and, overall, the more famous they are, the more abuse they receive. BUT women in Europe receive uncivil tweets even when they're not well known
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

“Democratic Resilience in Challenging Times” workshop -
connecting Northern UK scholars of Elections, Parties and
Public Opinion (EPOP) and hosted by the Governance and Political Organisations research cluster in Newcastle University - is in full swing @nclpolitics.bsky.social

@nclpolitics.bsky.social Research Seminar series had the great pleasure to host the amazing @anjaneundorf.bsky.social yesterday with an extremely timely talk about how we can "sell" democracy better

My favourite part of the job also happened this week. Huge congratulations to @jihedncib.bsky.social for an outstanding viva and excellent thesis!!! Very much looking forward to the publication that will follow ☺️

@nclpolitics.bsky.social

When we distinguish between parties with different ideological positions, the data do not support our expectation that centrist parties should be more responsive. Traditionalist parties seem to nominate fewer women when attitudes become more progressive. Yet, the placebo tests point to problems.

For countries with some form of candidate voting (flexible lists, fully open lists, or Single Transferable Vote), the effects are positive (11 percentage points) but estimated with a large degree of uncertainty. So, hard to say that change in public attitudes towards gender equality changes much.

🎉🎉🎉 Super excited that our paper -- on how changing public attitudes on gender equality don't seem to affect parties' candidate selection strategies -- with the amazing @ThomasDäubler and @mihailchiru.bsky.social is now accessible OnlineFirst at the EUP: journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

@nclpolitics.bsky.social

A quick interview at Estonian Public Broadcasting Service's breakfast program early morning yesterday on the (potential) reaction of UK parties and public on Starmer's statement of potentially sending British troops to Ukraine jupiter.err.ee/1609609172/b...

This is probably my most preferred way to get back to work from a holiday. Thank you so much @clint0475.bsky.social & @unibas.ch for hosting us and for all the insightful comments and questions. @nclpolitics.bsky.social

If you're looking for more morale-boosting and inspiring posts, make sure to follow us @nclpolitics.bsky.social

Can you please add @nclpolitics.bsky.social?

Hi! Can I please be added?