Dissertation Project
Party polarization—or the degree to which political parties disagree ideologically—is now multidimensional in most European democracies. Continuing to rely on a single left-right dimension risks obscuring an increasingly complex and fragmented political landscape. But what are the consequences of multidimensional polarization for the functioning of democracy? This project seeks to answer that question by [1] mapping multidimensional polarization among political parties across Europe (1970–present), and analyzing its consequences for [2] political engagement (e.g., voter turnout) and [3] partisan hostility. It will do so using a combination of innovative statistical methods, observational analyses, and experimental research designs.
The advent of digital democracy and social media has shifted the balance of power in political agenda-setting, giving rise to a new online elite of Social Media Influencers (SMIs) capable of shaping public discussions and agendas. For instance, German influencer Diana zur Löwen has used her platform to promote mental health awareness, influence public attitudes, and even impact the German coalition agreement. Italian fashion influencer Chiara Ferragni advocates for social causes such as raising funds for a new hospital wing during the COVID-19 pandemic, while Swiss influencer Anja Zeidler mobilized her 300,000 followers against the MERCOSUR free-trade agreement in 2019, prioritizing environmental concerns in the political agenda. However, it remains unclear whether SMIs can consistently leverage their significant follower numbers to set public debate topics beyond their usual areas of expertise. Thus, this research project aims to explore the role SMIs in the political agenda-setting process and their influence on traditional political elites within digital democracies.Specifically, I seek to examine the extent and quality of political content produced by SMIs, assess the effectiveness of their communication strategies, and determine the degree to which they shape traditional political elites' agendas. The objectives include analyzing the scope and nature of SMIs' political engagement on two major social-media platforms – Instagram and YouTube –, an evaluation of their communication strategies' effectiveness in resonating with online audiences as well as an investigation of SMIs’ influence on traditional political elites’ agendas and discourse. To achieve these objectives, the comprehensive data collection will focus on English and German speaking SMIs from Europe and North America between 2019 and 2023. I will employ a combination of supervised classification techniques, sentiment analysis, and advanced correlational methods to explore the relationships between SMIs, political content, audience engagement, and traditional political agendas. Additionally, online experiments will be conducted to assess SMIs’ ability to alter the issue priorities of their online audiences.This project holds significant academic, methodological, and practical implications for the fields of political science, political communication, and digital democracy. It contributes to a more profound understanding of political agenda setting in the digital age and offers valuable insights into the nature and effectiveness of political content shared by SMIs. Methodologically, the project will develop and employ innovative computational methods to analyze online political content, expanding the methodological toolkit in political science and providing broader applicability across various areas of the discipline.On a practical level, the findings will inform political actors, advocacy groups, and communication professionals on the most effective strategies for engaging with online audiences and shaping political discourse. By identifying factors contributing to the success or failure of political content on social media, this research can guide the development of targeted communication strategies for political engagement and advocacy.
The UZH faculties have taken a variety of measures to reduce flight-related greenhouse gas emissions. These range from quotas, incentive taxes and monitoring to compensation solutions. The evaluation project aims to assess the various measures. Different dimensions are assessed, such as the level of information on the measures, their acceptance, and their effects on the travel behavior and climate awareness of UZH members. The evaluation is based on guided interviews with those responsible for the measures and on the development of impact models for the different measures. Furthermore, the evaluation project is based on an analysis of existing data on the travel behavior of UZH members and on a standardized online survey of UZH members. Finally, the experiences with the implementation of the measures are collected in supplementary interviews. Based on the findings, the project formulates recommendations for the attention of decision makers in the faculties and the UZH. However, the significance of this project extends beyond UZH. It can serve as a model for other educational institutions and organizations pursuing similar emission reduction goals. Finally, the findings obtained in this evaluation project contribute to the scientific debate on the question of the acceptance and effectiveness of corresponding measures.
Development of a new ensemble classifier that outperforms existing MrP (multilevel regression with poststratification) approaches. This project builds on the prior work (Broniecki et al. 2022, https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/714777) and will improve upon "autoMrP" (https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/autoMrP/index.html).
The ERC Advanced Grant project GLOBAL applies cleavage theory to the international arena and investigates political oppositions at the global level. Treating the globe as one system, it analyses the cleavages that structure world politics and asks whether conflicts are shaped territorially or along functional alignments cutting across world regions.
The long-term empirical analysis from the 19th century to the present aims to establish if, and under what conditions, international divisions opposing world regions – core−periphery, North−South, or civilisational contrasts – change and are replaced by conflict lines that oppose groups that identify, link organizationally and act in solidarity across borders (classes, educational groups, generations, genders, as well as value groups). The project categorises cleavages according to three types of inequality that lead to global oppositions: economic, political-military and socio-cultural.
The investigation is carried out at the level of citizens, actors and institutions. GLOBAL combines comparative and supra-national approaches that look at the politics of inequality, i.e. how actors compete to politicize more or less equitable redistribution of rights and resources across world regions and across transnational groups. A research strategy based on statistics, scaling techniques, large language models and network analysis is used to explore electoral results, legislations, cleavages, roll-call votes, text produced by actors, individual surveys and organizational data.
Led by Daniele Caramani as Principal Investigator and hosted at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (European University Institute), GLOBAL will lead to an authored book on the globalization of politics, collective volumes and journal articles by the research team, as well as working papers by associated researchers.
This project will investigate how technology-supported, large-scale crowd computing approaches can be used to strengthen the functions of democratic consultation and popular initiative procedures—arguably the most impactful participatory mechanisms of direct democracy, as they allow the population to not only strongly influence the outcome of the political process but also to set the agenda (in popular initiatives). Hence, this project will build novel hybrid human-machine systems that cultivate, coordinate, and support participants using coordination technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to support these functions in real world democratic settings. Given that these goals need to combine and advance our understanding regarding the political process, the legal framework, as well as modern technology, this project will combine scientific methods from political science, jurisprudence, AI, and computer-supported cooperative work. The insights of this project may prove to be crucial for a direct democracy like Switzerland, to foster democratic innovation and turn its citizens to even more active, AI-empowered participants in the democratic process—a goal which ultimately ensures democratic stability and our welfare.
To catalyse climate action in Europe to protect public health, our overarching goal is to provide new knowledge, data, and tools on: i) the relationships between changes in environmental hazards caused by climate change, ecosystems, and human health; ii) the health co-benefits of climate action; iii) the role of health evidence in decision making; and iv) the societal implications of climate change for health systems.
Evaluation of a cantonal project that seeks to increase youth political participation among those learning a trade.
Final report: https://ipz.uzh.ch/apps/IPZMaster/storage/uploads/luleem/Schlussbericht_02_2025_1744014501.pdf
The main goal of this project is to gather data that helps us understand the political effects of cash transfers. For this purpose, we designed a survey to be administered in the Brazilian municipality of Maricà. We target Maricà specifically to evaluate a unique policy, the Renda Bàsica de Cidadania (RBC). The RBC is a monthly cash transfer of approx. R$170 (US$31) per person. All households with an income below 3 times the minimum wage (3 × R$ 1100) are eligible. We are specifically interested in how the program changed the citizen-government relationship. On the one hand cash transfers which reduce vulnerability are expected to decrease clientelism on the other hand other corrupt activities may replace clientelism when people have more cash on hand. Importantly, perceptions on corruption in general relate to political participation and public support for democracy, which is historically low in Brazil, especially among the poor and vulnerable. Yet, successful programmatic social policies can raise participation and democratic support. Political effects of cash transfers are generally difficult to estimate, since most transfer programs are transitory not permanent like the RBC. We leverage the the eligibility threshold of the RBC, a quasi-exogenous cut-off, which allows us to apply causal inference methods. Since the RBC is financed through oil royalties our research will be informative for the prominent “resource-curse” literature. In this respect we will be able to provide tangible policy conclusions on whether the RBC is feasible model for spending resource revenues.