Armin Schaefer

Very happy to see our paper with @clandwehr.bsky.social in Political Behavior! doi.org/10.1007/s111... We ask: Do beliefs about what the public wants shape whether citizens see political decisions as legitimate? Such beliefs are often wrong and biased—which could distort legitimacy perceptions.

Politik wird zunehmend akademisch. Und zunehmend zur Berufspolitik. Perspektiven anderer gesellschaftlicher Bereiche fehlen. So weit, so bekannt. Doch warum wird dann weiter die „Elite“ gewählt? Neue Dlf Systemfragen - Warum Politik so elitär bleibt. share.deutschlandradio.de/dlf-audiothe...

Klar: Unsere #Forschungswerkstatt gibt es auch im Wintersemester! Auf der Gästeliste stehen wieder interessante Personen aus dem In- und Ausland mit spannenden Themen, die uns bewegen. Nächste Woche gehts schon los - weitere Infos folgen.

📜 New paper out in @electoralstudies.bsky.social! If you've always found Norris and Inglehart's cultural backlash theory of far-right voting unconvincing, I can confirm your skepticism – at least in the European context. Here, it has both theoretical and empirical flaws. doi.org/10.1016/j.el...

Populism can be challenged successfully but not with all types of counter-arguments. Pluralist appeals can decrease support for populist majoritarian democracy, while elitist counter-arguments have no effect on democratic attitudes link.springer.com/article/10.1...

New WP with brilliant co-author @jacobnyrup.bsky.social! Which governments are most representative? We match the backgrounds of tens of thousands of cabinet ministers to population data in 136 countries (1991-2021) and measure the representation gap on gender, age, education, class and geography.

New in Electoral Studies w/ Eric Linhart & @cerpintaxt.bsky.social: How do voters weigh proportional representation against clear majorities? Our survey experiment in DE, NL & UK finds that voters favor proportionality, esp. when trade-offs are explicit. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

It's finally publication day for this decade-in-the-making book. @noamlupu.bsky.social and I explain why working-class jobs make up 70% of the average democracy's labor force, but only 2% of the average democracy's national lawmakers had working-class jobs when they got into politics.

Parliamentary seat share in the German Bundestag since 1949 Inspired by @economist.com's chart showing how the factions and parties evolved in Israel's Knesset. #ggplot2 📊

🎉 WIR HABEN ES GESCHAFFT: Die Allianz der #RheinMainUniversitäten (RMU) aus @goetheuni.bsky.social, @unimainz.bsky.social & @tuda.bsky.social wird ab 2027 im Rahmen der #Exzellenzstrategie als #Exzellenzverbund gefördert: www.rhein-main-universitaeten.de/news/rhein-m... @dfg.de @wissenschaftsrat.de

For my new research unit Politics of Democracy at the Berlin Social Science Center @wzb.bsky.social, we have 3 open research positions. 2 postdocs: 4 + 2 years (100%) 1 doc: 2 years (75%) Starting date: 1 March 2027 (negotiable) Application deadline: 1 November

Lucan Way and I have been writing about competitive authoritarianism for more than 25 years. We never thought we'd write this piece. www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/com...

Do educational networks at workplaces shape political attitudes? 👬 Happy to share that the latest paper in my dissertation is now published in @bjpols.bsky.social.

Having a job in a workplace with a considerable proportion of university-educated coworkers is associated with an increase in culturally liberal attitudes www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

🆕 Our article "Varieties of left-wing authoritarianism?" shows how #BSW branches differ on key issues, what party and voters (don't) share, and what this reveals about an emerging ideology (with E. Linhart, @drphilphil.bsky.social, @benjaminhoehne.bsky.social). journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

“Of the 919 candidates running as major-party nominees for the US House and Senate this November, only seven had a working-class job when they got into politics. That’s less than 1%, despite working-class jobs making up about half of the US labor force.” @carnes.bsky.social and I explain why.

Happy to share our new article on academic freedom. @paulita.bsky.social, Christiane Thompson and Gregor Fabian examine how academic rank shapes experiences, expectations and perceptions of restrictions on academic freedom, based on a survey of 9.083 academics in Germany. doi.org/10.1111/1468...

Very cool paper! 👇

📢 The Call for Papers for EPSS 2027 is open! After a fantastic first conference in Belfast, we’re heading to Copenhagen 🇩🇰, 24–26 June 2027. ⏰ Deadline: 13 Nov 2026 👉 Call for papers: epssnet.org/2027-copenha... 1/2

We chair an open panel on "New Cleavage Identities" at the DVPW Convention 2027. Questions: Which identities are emerging as new cleavage identities? How do they form and stabilize? How do elites construct and mobilize them? How do they affect vote choice? CfP: www.dvpw.de/dvpw2027/en/...

The German Local Manifesto Project (GLMP) is now online! 🇩🇪 GLMP provides a systematically documented & reproducible corpus of local manifestos & related political programmes from municipalities across Germany. Browse & download the data: localmanifestoproject.de @christinajuen.bsky.social

Another great article from our SI on the 2025 GER election is out! Roßteutscher et al. find that “young men on lower tracks are the most likely to support the right-wing populist AfD, and that the political climate in their educational contexts amplifies this association.” doi.org/10.1016/j.el...

and one more in English 😄 (similar title, but with a different focus, emphasizing the role of social workers in advancing structural policy change): doi.org/10.1080/1369... [both articles—this one and the one from my previous post—are open access]

Saxony-Anhalt went to the polls, with the AfD falling just short of a majority. Here are some takeaways based on the preliminary results across all 218 municipalities and local socioeconomic characteristics. A thread 🧵(1 /n) Full analysis + write-up: juliuskoelzer.de/saxony-anhal...

Interesting first insights of an ongoing survey 👇

Women remain underrepresented in politics. In POQ, Gothreau & Laustsen report the results from the most comprehensive and geographically diverse test of citizens’ preferences for women candidates to date. Read now: doi.org/10.1093/poq/...

ℹ️ Mehr Informationen unter: internationale.politik.uni-mainz.de/internationa... Jetzt noch bis Ende August bewerben!

 📢 A new resource for referendum research is now online! We're excited to launch RefSurv – an infrastructure for facilitating comparative research on referendum voting. 🔎📊 Explore it here: referendumsurveys.org 1/

Working-class people almost never go on to become politicians, and that's not a fluke or a recent development: it's a ***built-in feature of elections*** in all democracies (w/ @noamlupu.bsky.social) theconversation.com/why-working-...

Ich bin über das Cover @spiegel.de aus der letzten Woche verzweifelt. Und vor allem über die zugehörige Erklärung von Chefredakteur Dirk Kurbjuweit. Freue mich sehr, dass meine Kritik nun im neuen SPIEGEL (online + Print) veröffentlicht wird 👉🏼 www.spiegel.de/politik/deut...

If you want to read something extremely bleak yet insightful this morning: www.newstatesman.com/cover-story/...

Our paper on citizens' expectations for and evaluations of democratic representation is now out in Representation! Great pleasure working with David Talukder on this paper! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Taktisches Wählen soll eine Regierung der AfD in Sachsen-Anhalt verhindern. Für @zeit.de schreibe ich, warum die Strategie der politischen Mitte in Ostdeutschland kurzfristig helfen mag, aber langfristig nicht ihre strukturellen Probleme löst – und mache einen Vorschlag. www.zeit.de/politik/deut...

Learned a lot talking to Peter Enns for my podcast’s latest deep dive intvw about his new paper "How a Seemingly Innocuous and Intuitive Methodological Choice Confused a Generation of Research on Policy Responsiveness." Some rare good news for democracy? www.gelliottmorris.com/p/deep-dive-...

We are hiring a postdoc in Comparative Politics at JGU Mainz! Join our friendly and productive team, led by Armin Schäfer (@arminschaefer.bsky.social). • Full-time position • Five-year contract (!) • Start: from 1 October Apply by 22 August: stellenboerse.uni-mainz.de/jgu/job/56328 Please share!

Are you looking for a good home for your research on the dynamics of #farright mobilisation and its implications for democracy? Look no further than this call 📣 We're particularly interested in innovative theoretical and empirical studies that critically engage with the radical–extreme distinction

This is awful. I hope England wins.

🚨We are hiring a two-year postdoctoral researcher (80%) at the University of Zurich within the new Horizon Europe project WELFAIR on the political implications of technological change, demographic ageing and rising inequality. The full job ad is here: tinyurl.com/3b6ddm25 Apply by August 9, 2026.

📣 We're hiring! Looking for a PostDoc? Join our team in Berlin! Work with @heikekluever.bsky.social, @macartan.bsky.social and Johannes Giesecke at Humboldt University, @scripts-berlin.eu and @humboldt-govlab.bsky.social Great people, great project, great city! 🗓️ Deadline: 15 August 2026

Europe’s growing urban-rural divide in voting along the transnational cleavage is not merely a reflection of underlying educational differences, as @theresakuhn.bsky.social, @bramlancee.bsky.social and I show in this new study in @ejprjournal.bsky.social. A short thread 🔽

Happy to see my work with @ivobantel.bsky.social and @lucasleemann.bsky.social published in Party Politics. We look at how affective polarization shapes voters' preferences for technocratic and populist governance in Germany showing that it largely depends on partisanship 1/4

NEW PUBLICATION!🚨 The 2023 Swiss federal elections were the first ever held under mandatory campaign finance disclosure rules. So how does an open-list PR influence campaign spending? Greater voters' ability to cast preference votes = more money spent onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...