Elias Koch

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:

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.

🚨New Paper in @polbehavior.bsky.social! Julia Leschke and I ask: What works against populist rhetoric? We find: Advocating for pluralist ideals can mitigate the negative effects of populist rhetoric. link.springer.com/article/10.1... More details below ⏬

New research note out with Martin Haselmayer in @ejprjournal.bsky.social 🎉 When do parties invoke social groups to attack their rivals? 👇 doi.org/10.1017/S147...

Ever wondered what attributes are relevant in your conjoint experiment? And what assumptions you need to estimate it? Asya and I got you covered. In a new working paper we propose the APNS: the probability that an attribute's level change is necessary and sufficient for the selection of a profile.

Why do green parties struggle electorally despite widespread support for climate action? My new (first 😱) paper explores why green parties remain uniquely challenged in economic crisis & that the mechanism is not only about sociotropic concerns, but also voters’ pocketbooks 🧵 doi.org/10.1017/S147...

Today, @malojan.bsky.social and I are launching the PartySOME website at partysome.org, an open, interactive platform for exploring how much political parties communicate online and what they talk about 🎤💻📊

📄 New paper in @electoralstudies.bsky.social: “From the center to the fringes: A comparative test of attitudinal explanations for mainstream-to-challenger defection” 👥 with @krausewe.bsky.social and @aigneranna.bsky.social 🔗 doi.org/10.1016/j.el...

We are hiring at LMU Munich: two PhD positions and one postdoc on democracy, political psychology and computational social science. Start: January 2027 or as soon as possible. We review applications on a rolling basis until October 20. Details below. Reposts very welcome! 1/7

Thinking about doing a PhD in political science? We are looking for people interested in studying politics in the Baltic Sea Region (the Nordic countries, the Baltics, Poland, etc.). Projects may come from a range of subfields, including gender & politics, legislative studies, and party politics.

Do you want to understand whether investments in public services can make democracies more resilient? Come and do your PhD with @heikekluever.bsky.social and me! We offer great conditions, a supportive team, and lots of room to develop your own ideas. Any questions? Please, do reach out!

🧵 Just accepted @thejop.bsky.social, with @tswalve.bsky.social "What's in a name? Name recognition, place-based identities, and candidate success" Voters prefer local candidates. But how do they know who's local? Often simply from the name on the ballot👇 www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

We've built a website for our DFG project: we collect, process, and study 30,000+ hours of video recordings of legislative debate in all German State Parliaments and the German Bundestag! ⤵️ videoparl.github.io

Does losing an election affect politicians' democratic attitudes? A large literature documents a winner–loser gap among voters, but evidence on political elites was long scarce. A series of recent studies has narrowed this gap. A thread on the state of the evidence. 🧵

Are politicians gatekeepers of democracy? Will they reject candidates for party leadership or coalitions to protect it? We ran pre-registered experiments on 2,000 Norwegian politicians. They do gatekeep, but it’s conditional. osf.io/preprints/so...

New public pre-print with @aarslew.bsky.social and Martin Bisgaard 🧵 We introduce a perspective on democratic erosion that focuses on quiet anticipation among political elites: what do they think happens to those who cross a strongman that challenges democracy? www.researchgate.net/publication/...

📢 Job Ad: I am looking for one doctoral researcher (75%) in my newly funded DFG project on misperceptions and factual information on immigration from 1.10. or soon after! 📌 Location: MZES, University of Mannheim 💢 Application Deadline: 21st of July

Are preferences for authoritarian rule individual predispositions—or can they spread socially? Using field + survey experiments in the Norwegian Armed Forces, we show that openness to strongman rule can spread socially. American Journal of Political Science: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

The Department of Political Science at Aarhus University is hiring both Assistant Professors and Associate Professors. Assistant Professor: international.au.dk/about/profil... Associate Professor: international.au.dk/about/profil... Please share these opportunities with your networks!

⚽📚 The Ultimate World Cup Research Thread I've set up a little automated thread: every day of the 2026 World Cup (11 Jun–19 Jul) it shares one study on what football does to society: politics, economics, migration, health, crime & more. One paper a day. Kickoff below 👇

New paper out in the @thejop.bsky.social (w/ @christinagahn.bsky.social) Do opinion polls shape election results? Using both cross-national data and a survey experiment, the answer we find is yes - though it depends on how we communicate polling results. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

🚨 What happens with voters when politicians use simpler language? New @thejop.bsky.social paper with @rsenninger.bsky.social: simple language changes not just what citizens understand, but who they think politicians are. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Post-doc position at @scripts-berlin.eu! If you are a survey researcher interested in cross-national research on how people perceive liberalism, democracy etc, take a look! You’ll get to work with 🥳 @swenhutter.bsky.social: www.wzb.eu/en/jobs/post...

A great overview of the accommodation question by Hanno Hilbig, worth your time!

🗣️ Do citizens believe parliamentarians when they call out autocratic behavior? A survey experiment by @jmvanlit.bsky.social, @mauritsmeijers.bsky.social & Carolien van Ham suggests that credibility depends on government/opposition status and consistency 👇️ 🔗 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

I’m hiring 2 doctoral researchers in Politics of Climate Change at Heidelberg University 🌍 📊 Survey Research & Political Participation 🗣️ Qualitative Research & Group Formation Part of “The New Climate Divide” Deadline: 21 June 2026 Calls: www.ipw.uni-heidelberg.de/en/about-us/... Please share!

Wanna talk about the cordon sanitaire (the "Brandmauer"?) 🚨We (@christinajuen.bsky.social, @pluggedchris.bsky.social and I) have a new paper out in @cpsjournal.bsky.social 🔗 doi.org/10.1177/0010... What do we do in the paper? A 🧵: 1/7

📣 New paper out in BJPolS 📣

🚨 Stellenausschreibung 🚨 Promotionsstelle zu Parteien in ländlich-peripheren Räumen (4 Jahre, 75 %) Das Projekt verbindet qualitative Interviews, die Analyse lokaler Parteistrukturen und Inhaltsanalysen von Wahlprogrammen. 🗓️ Bewerbungsschluss: 31.05.2026 www.uni-greifswald.de/universitaet...

One of the most impressive examples of research happening at @hertiedatascience.bsky.social. Evidence production is a massive soft power and some governments are currently shooting themselves in the foot by attacking the very institutions that nurture it.

Campaign Lab are hiring for 3 new roles - Great opportunity for anyone from an academic or applied research background who's excited about running RCTs and doing data science with progressive campaigns in the UK! campaignlab.uk/work-with-us/

📊🤖 New paper with @aa-philipp.bsky.social & colleagues! We investigate how LLMs construct social realities by testing OpenAI’s o3 on a highly context-sensitive task: racial categorization of YouTube creators. Access the full article here: doi.org/10.1080/0020...

What drives legislators' emotional engagement with climate issues? I explore the role of their age and party affiliation and over-time developments in a new research note in European Journal of Political Research. (a thread)

A reminder that applications for this 3-year fully funded PhD position close at the end of next week (May 17). This is a great opportunity to work on climate politics comparative politics in a vibrant environment, with loads of freedom to develop your own project. www.sciencespo.fr/centre-etude...

👇That, and the opportunity to be part of a research community featuring rockstar colleagues inlcuding Drew, Asya Magazinnik, Lynn Kaack, Will Lowe, and more great people at @hertieschool.bsky.social!

📢 We're hiring for my project RESPOL on residential mobility & electoral realignment 📍 University of Hamburg 📅 4y, 75% FTE 🔍 pol behavior, comp politics, regional inequalities 📊 quant, administrative & survey data Please share with talented MA students! 🔗 www.uni-hamburg.de/en/stellenan...

Does far-right legislative representation change the descriptive make-up of candidate lists among mainstream parties? Using a RDD with registry data from Sweden, this paper led by @grahn.bsky.social provides an answer doi.org/10.1017/psrm...

🚨 Job alert! 🚨 Postdoc in Comparative Politics/Public Opinion/IR (3 yrs) @unigreifswald.bsky.social Work on democratic resilience in times of crisis using cross-national survey data. flexible start (earliest possible) deadline: 31 May 2026 🔗 www.uni-greifswald.de/en/universit...

🚨 Job Alert We are loooking for a 3year Postdoc @excinequality.bsky.social Work with @mbusemeyer.bsky.social, Sebastian Koos, and me Focus: computational social science, analysis of political texts, future-oriented policies and parties 📅Apply by June 5th stellen.uni-konstanz.de/jobposting/c...

Video of the Harvard lecture here--thanks for the great comments and questions! www.youtube.com/watch?v=FODd...

Noch ein Job: Für das Projekt "Knowledge, Epistemic Marginalization, and the Politics of Resentment" (Co-PI: Joachim Blatter) suche ich einen Postdoc an der Universität Bremen. Vertragsdauer: 3,5 Jahre Stelle: 100% Bewerbung: Bis 05.05. Stellenausschreibung: www.uni-bremen.de/universitaet...

Three 2-year full-time postdoctoral positions in autocratic politics at the Department of Political Science at Aarhus University (in connection to projects headed by Jakob Tolstrup and Alexander Baturo). Flexible start date. Application deadline: June 1, 2026. international.au.dk/about/profil...

🚨 New paper accepted at the @bjpols.bsky.social: we were in the field while Brexit dominated British politics. Do MPs respond differently when constituents disagree with the party line? What we find surprised us: a null! url: osf.io/preprints/os...

And another Quarto announcement; I've alluded to it before, but we're making it "official". We've started work on Quarto 2. The blog post has an overview: quarto.org/docs/blog/po... We'll share more in future blog posts, but here's what you can expect from the Quarto 2 dev effort: (1/)

New publication 📄 "Little change in a changing landscape: Tracking exposure to untrustworthy news in Germany from 2017 to 2024". So far, my shortest paper - and the first with @simonsaysnothin.bsky.social! Read our brief description of news web browsing @journalqd.bsky.social