Zeljko Poljak

🔔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!

Several recent studies have found that politicians aren't very good at estimating public support for policies. But we have little idea about whether politicians are good at knowing which issues are more important to voters. Our new publication has a first go at answering this question rdcu.be/eQGm4

Do policy preferences of voters and non-voters differ in European democracies?

My new article in @ejprjournal.bsky.social finds: Yes, sometimes, but this is not the norm.

Let's break it down. 🧵 1/10

The Rise of Hostile Communication Styles and their Consequences for the Functioning of Modern Democracies European Consortium for Political Research

🎬 Excited to co-direct a #ecprjs26 Workshop w/ J. Dedeigne on hostile communication styles 🤬

Working on uncivil 🙄, intolerant 🙅🏻‍♀️, or violent 🤜 political rhetoric and its effects across countries, contexts, or media? Join us!

📅 Submit by 10 Dec: tinyurl.com/yjcaa3ay

🚨New paper out in @jeppjournal.bsky.social: doi.org/10.1080/1350...

@manuelwagner.bsky.social & I re-conceptualize class representation to take into account social mobility between classes and variation in how individuals enter politics.

🚨 New piece out at @thejop.bsky.social w awesome @cvargiu.bsky.social & D Garzia

If incivility means breaking norms, & norms are person- and context-dependent, *does incivility even exist*?

In the stage-2 registered report we investigate what drives perceptions of incivility

tinyurl.com/4h5u4y8y

Over the moon to see this paper out in the @ejprjournal.bsky.social David Willumsen and I look at coalition agreements in the Netherlands. We show that the greater the share of negotiating parties that agree on a policy the more likely it ends up in the agreement www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Politicians don’t just care how many people hold an opinion — they care how good that opinion is. In our new (open-access) article in West European Politics, based on survey data from 900+ politicians across 11 countries, we show: quality > quantity. Read more: doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Looking forward to seeing your paper, panel, roundtable etc. proposals for the Party Politics section of EPSS. Don't forget: submissions are due on November 7, and the conference will take place in Belfast on June 18-20. @epssnet.bsky.social @sarahwagner.bsky.social

📢 My last PhD paper is out in Legislative Studies Quarterly 📢

📌 Main finding
➡️ Party control of speaking time in parliament limits MPs’ geographical focus
➡️ Open access increases constituency representation

🔗 Read it open access here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Our article “Unsuccessful Candidates Are More Concerned About Electoral Fairness than Election Winners” is now online @thejop.bsky.social

Using RDD and elite survey data from Denmark, we show that losing candidates express greater concern about electoral fairness.

🔗 doi.org/10.1086/734240

1/4

Download our new book for FREE! Thiago, Laron, and I explain why studying whether and how voters know what parties want (and who goes with whom) is important and layout a framework for how to do this better. Check out the cover, promotional comic, and abstract

cup.org/4mkBibw

In our new study, @rozemarijnvandijk.bsky.social and I looked at who gets interrupted during debates in the parliaments of 🇦🇺🇭🇷🇬🇧. We find that women and men get interrupted just as often. Yet, when more women join the debate, politicians interrupt less.

➡️ Read the full study: doi.org/10.1093/pa/g...

New paper out @wepsocial.bsky.social!

🥡 Key Take-Away: Opposition parties seek more conflict with the government when performing poorly in the polls – especially when falling below their previous election result.

Read full 🧵 below:

Great to attend IPSA's World Congress in the fantastic city of Seoul! 🇰🇷 I had the chance to present ongoing research and engage with impressive work from fellow political science colleagues. Seoul was an incredible place to visit, truly a memorable experience!

Congrats, Britt! 🙌

Thrilled that my article on women's activism in PRR parties has been published open access today in @cpsjournal.bsky.social 💫

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

This is my favourite article from my PhD thesis. I love the topic, its findings, and the literature it draws on.

A quick 🧵:

Congrats, Kira!! 🥳

Our new book THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ATTACK POLITICS is out next month! 🔥📚

We offer a new look at negativity effects, via perceptions & evaluations🤔😱👿🤣

You can pre-order it with a nice 20% discount on the cover price (for paperbacks this makes it £32 or so)

Check out discount code & link in the flyer 👇

Swiss Political Science Review: Vol 31, No 2 Click on the title to browse this issue

🎉 New Special Issue out in Swiss Political Science Review!

Together with @christinajuen.bsky.social @martingross.bsky.social @simonotjes.bsky.social & Michael Jankowski, I co-edited a collection of articles on party politics at the local level.

🔗 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/16626370...

🧵👇

What kind of opposition do citizens want? Abstract Opposition parties play a crucial role in democracies. While scholars have extensively studied opposition behaviour and institutional powers, little is known about what citizens expect from opposition parties and how they evaluate these expectations being met. This study addresses this gap by examining citizens’ views on three key opposition roles - oversight, cooperation, and offering alternatives - and their perceived fulfilment across four countries: Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. Based on a citizen survey, this study assesses how individual characteristics (democratic satisfaction, political interest, education) and institutional context are related to these views. Citizens across all four countries value cooperation. Preferences for the ‘alternative’ role vary between institutional settings. On the individual level, conflict-oriented and dissatisfied citizens value cooperation less, while those with higher education and political interest find oversight and cooperation more important.

🧵 New research on what citizens expect from opposition parties in democracy published in @wepsocial.bsky.social. @elinazorina.bsky.social and I surveyed people in Canada, Denmark, Netherlands & UK to understand their views on opposition roles. doi.org/10.1080/0140...

I am incredibly proud that my book, co-authored with Andrea Aldrich, is published. Using an original party leadership dataset from 11 parliamentary democracies, Andrea and I show that women candidates face a glass ceiling for leadership and quickly sink once elected (the quicksand theory).

Hey y'all I am hiring a PhD student. Minimal teaching load and many opportunities for more ;)

uol.de/job566en

🚨 We have two vacancies for PhD fellows:

- on ideological stereotypes supervised by me and
@robindevroe.bsky.social www.ugent.be/en/work/scie...

- on losers' consent supervised by @annakern.bsky.social
www.ugent.be/en/work/scie...

Join research group @gasparugent.bsky.social in beautiful Ghent

2 PhD positions in Electoral behavior 2 PhD positions to research how social group memberships become connected to vote choices

I'm recruiting 2 PhD researchers to work with me on a project studying how social groups influence vote choices!

Info on the position and how to apply 👉 www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jo...

Please share with interested students who would like to move to beautiful Leuven!

Politicians are better at estimating public opinion when they think it is more salient - Chris Butler, Stefaan Walgrave, Karolin Soontjens, Peter John Loewen, 2025 Politicians’ perceptions of public opinion matter for substantive representation, but previous work has concluded that they do not have very accurate perception...

Delighted that this paper with Antwerp colleagues now has page numbers. We show that politicians hold more accurate perceptions about public opinion on issues that they think are important to voters (1/2) journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

🚨 New publication 🚨 : Happy to share that my paper, "Losing Touch: The Rhetorical Cost of Governing" is now forthcoming at @cpsjournal.bsky.social. Short 🧵 about the paper here 👇 1/10

Happy to present our paper about the influence of populist parties on government stability.
Overall, populists in cabinet is one of the strongest predictors of premature government termination - but more in some countries than others

🚨Publication Alert🚨

New update to the ManifestoVault repository is available!

Included: cleaned, content-verified manifesto texts at the natural-sentence level of the 2025 German general election.

Full coverage: Ireland, UK, Germany 1970-2025

@rwillh11.bsky.social, @lenamariahuber.bsky.social

Vacancy — PhD Position "Visual Politics and the Emergence of Angry Publics" Are you curious about how images, videos, and memes transform political communication? Are you passionate about digital technology and the future of democracy? Then apply for this PhD project focused ...

🚨 PhD position in Political Communication at @ascor.bsky.social 🚨

Come work with @ulrikeklinger.bsky.social @lindabos.bsky.social and myself on a 4-year project about visual communication & political anger

DL June 4 - Thanks to repost for diversity! 🔥

@polcomm.bsky.social

➡️ tinyurl.com/8yvbkwxu