On
this page, you will be able to learn a little bit more about some of my main
past and current research projects. You will discover what they are about,
how they are running, or what publications they have led to. In some cases,
you will be forwarded onto the web-page of the specific project. This is
just an indicative short list. I am currently running 15 different projects,
so do feel free to contact me for further details.
‘Understanding Identity Realignments: Symbols, News, and European Identity.’
This project, which ran from 1999 to 2002, was
sponsored by the ESRC (ref R000223463), and the Reitmeyer Foundation. The
project consisted of a pilot study and then a two-year-long panel-study
design to study the impact of news and symbols of Europe on citizens'
European identity in six European democracies: UK, France, Germany, Belgium,
Portugal, and Sweden.
The project, which I co-ordinated, has led to a number of publications, including Citizens of Europe? published in 2005 by Palgrave Macmillan, and articles in journals such as Comparative Political Studies (2003) and Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (2004). Other publications are currently being prepared.
24 hours in the mind of a voter - investigating the mysterious trail of
electoral memory
What are the thoughts, the images, and the memories that go through the mind of a citizen, alone in the booth and ready to cast his or her vote? This project takes us on an amazing journey that challenges many of the assumptions that have occasionally been made about what 'matters' in one's electoral past. We interviewed several hundreds of citizens, aged 18 to 110, from the USA, France, and Belgium, in electoral periods asking them what they remember about past elections. Do they remember the first time they voted? Some other marking elections? Do they tend to mostly remember the debates, who they voted for, who actually won, or maybe simply some discussions or arguments with family and friends? This project gives us an unprecedented insight into one of the least well known aspects of the voter's mind - their electoral memory, and about its impact on the future electoral choice of voters.
'What brings you here?' The motivations of young party members in six European democracies
See www.youngpm.org
This project, which runs from December 2004 to February 2007 is sponsored by the Leverhulme Trust. It aims at understanding the goals, incentives, and motivations of young party members (aged 18-25) in six European democracies: UK, France, Germany, Spain, Norway, and Hungary. The project relies on both quantitative and qualitative methods and targets thirteen different political parties from all party families. The project, which I co-ordinate with the help of Sarah Harrison, principal researcher is currently in the phase of data collection. More information can be found here.
Cynicism and protest in seven European democracies
This pilot project is financed by a
Research Development Seed Grant from the LSE and runs from the end of 2006
to 2009. Its main research
question and objective is to understand how apparently equally dissatisfied
citizens end up protesting in very different ways. Whilst levels of cynicism
and political dissatisfaction are reaching record levels across Europe, it
is not very clear what leads a dissatisfied member of a political community
to express them by voting for the opposition, demonstrating, abstaining in
elections altogether, or voting for an extremist parties. These various
modes of protest have extremely different consequences both at the
individual level (when it comes to the insertion of a given citizen in his
political system) and at the aggregate level (in terms of what it means for
democratic stability). The project uses a mixture of focus group interviews
and internet based survey, and will run in seven European countries: the UK,
France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Denmark, and the Czech Republic. For this
project, I am associated with Lauren McLaren from the University of
Nottingham and helped by Sarah Harrison from the LSE.
The Extreme right ideology - Testing the four pillar model. Part I - The Discourse
This project is the first part of a trilogy
that I conduct jointly with Sarah Harrison from the LSE, focusing on a new
discursive-strategic model to
understand the nature of extreme right politics in Europe. This specific
component of the trilogy is funded by a SEED research fund grant. The model proposes a
new complex definition of the extreme right ideology focused on a series of
combinations of two of four possible discursive-strategic pillars. This first
part of the project looks at party programmes and press releases. We code
and analyse the party manifestoes of over 30 extreme right parties from
twenty European democracies, and look at how they vary and differ from each
other. In the case of 8 of the parties, we also use the same framework to
code all of the parties' press releases over a period of ten years to
evaluate how the discourse of these parties has evolved over time.
The second part of the trilogy is based on interviews of extreme right party
leaders at the national, regional, European, and youth group levels in nine
European democracies. The third
part will look at the mass behaviour of citizens in elections and the
motivation of extreme right voters and sympathisers.
The Extreme right ideology - Testing the four pillar model. Part II - The Elites
This project is part of a trilogy that I conduct jointly with Sarah Harrison from the LSE, focusing on a new discursive-strategic model to understand the nature of extreme right politics in Europe. This specific component of the trilogy is funded by a STICERD grand. This second part is based on interviews of extreme right party leaders in nine European democracies. We interviewed national leaders, youth party leaders, regional leaders, and Members of the European Parliament to evaluate their ideological preferences, strategic-discursive choices, etc.
Vote seeking or policy seeking? Simulating parties' manifestoes
equilibria in democratic elections
This project runs from 2005 to 2008
and aims at better
understanding the nature of the equilibrium between the programmes of
competing parties depending on their respective policy positions and the
predicted closeness of the race. The project is based on mathematical
simulations and is jointly co-ordinated with Robert Erikson, Columbia
University, USA. Our assistant on this project is Aaron Strauss from
Princeton University.
Understanding citizens' behaviour in the referenda on a European Constitution
This project is a proposed comparative study of voting behaviour in the referenda on a European
Constitution. I co-ordinate it jointly with Cees van der Eijk and
Lauren McLaren (University of Nottingham) and we are currently piloting it.
Substantively, the project will test a number of hypotheses concerning how people vote in referenda
on a European questions (according to what they think of the specific
text? Their level of European identity? Attitudes towards internal politics,
European democracy, foreigners? Etc.) Methodologically, it explores the
various ways of measuring and voting intentions in referenda, shifting away
from the traditional but somewhat limiting 'yes/no/unsure' models often used.
Ultimately, the project will also find out more about the dynamics of
decision making in referenda campaign and the interaction between individual
level preferences and aggregate level forces. A preliminary sample
questionnaire is available here.
Asia-Pacific EU Perceptions project
This project is co-ordinated by Natalia Chaban and Martin Holland from the
NCRE, University of Canterbury, New Zealand and analyses the way the EU is
perceived in a four Asia Pacific countries: Australia, New Zealand,
Thailand, and South Korea. The project relies on mass surveys as well as an
analysis of elite and media perceptions. More information about the project
can be found here.