Research Interests:
Twitter has identified 2,752 accounts that it believes are linked to the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian company that creates online propaganda. These accounts are known to have tweeted about the US 2016 Elections and the list... more
Twitter has identified 2,752 accounts that it believes are linked to the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian company that creates online propaganda. These accounts are known to have tweeted about the US 2016 Elections and the list was submitted as evidence by Twitter to the United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism. There is no equivalent officially published list of accounts from the IRA known to be active in the UK-EU Referendum debate (Brexit), but we found that the troll accounts active on the 2016 US Election also produced content related to Brexit. We found 3,485 tweets from 419 of the accounts listed as IRA accounts which specifically discussed Brexit and related topics such as the EU and migration. We have been collating an archive of tweets related to Brexit since August 2015 and currently have over 70 million tweets. The Brexit referendum took place on the 23rd June 2016 and the UK voted to leave the European Union. We gathered the data using the Twitter API and a selection of hashtags chosen by a panel of academic experts. Currently we have in excess of fifty different hashtags and we add to the set periodically to accurately represent the evolving conversation. Twitter has closed the accounts that were documented in the Senate list meaning that these tweets are no longer available through the webpage or API. Due to Twitter's terms of service we are unable to share specific tweet text or user profile information but our findings, utilising text and metadata from derived and aggregated data, allows us to provide important insights into the behaviour of these trolls.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Public Administration, Political Economy, Voting Behavior, Political Science, Ideology, and 15 morePolitical communication, Social Media, Organizational structure, Organizational Development, Membership, Political Power, Switzerland, Schweiz, Organisationsentwicklung, Party, Politikwissenschaft, Politische Kommunikation, Centralization, soziale Medien, and Wahlverhalten
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This paper investigates the role of gender in shaping attitudes towards the European Union (EU) among young people living in Polish cities – the so-called ‘winners of European integration’. Previously, little attention has been given to... more
This paper investigates the role of gender in shaping attitudes towards the European Union (EU) among young people living in Polish cities – the so-called ‘winners of European integration’. Previously, little attention has been given to gender as an influence on views on the EU. Most studies apply the gender-based perspective on Western Europe, while Central and Eastern European countries remain understudied. Based on theories on public opinion, I employ a mixed-methods approach, conducting a survey among 815 MA students living in Polish cities, followed by 27 semi-structured interviews. This analysis of gender-related attitudes towards the EU offers nuanced insights into transitions within post-communist societies. My findings posit that the sampled well-educated women are more likely to support EU integration than men. Education, gender-based individual cost-benefit analyses, and the perceptions of national politics are possible explanations for the positive attitudes towards the EU among the sampled women.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
ABSTRACT The future of the European Union (EU) increasingly depends on the attitudes and opinions of its citizens. This article examines constructions of attitudes towards European integration among young residents living in urban centres... more
ABSTRACT The future of the European Union (EU) increasingly depends on the attitudes and opinions of its citizens. This article examines constructions of attitudes towards European integration among young residents living in urban centres in Poland. Work conducted in the field of European studies shows that territorial attachment and utilitarian approaches can shape attitudes towards the EU. Using a mixed-methods approach, this study analyses these social and political processes among 324 MA students living in five Polish cities. The results confirm a complex interaction of cost–benefit calculations and attachment-related mechanisms that shape support for EU integration within the sampled group.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The Swiss People’s Party (Schweizerische Volkspartei [SVP]) has increased its territorial extensiveness and organisational intensiveness in recent years, and has professionalised its strategies of communication. This article analyses the... more
The Swiss People’s Party (Schweizerische Volkspartei [SVP]) has increased its territorial extensiveness and organisational intensiveness in recent years, and has professionalised its strategies of communication. This article analyses the dynamics characterising the SVP’s organisation. It shows that with its locally rooted presence and its effort to generate ideological coherence, the party has embraced the “mass party” organisational model. It additionally assesses the extent to which the SVP’s centralised power at the federal level is conducive to the party’s further electoral success. Having considered both the party at national level and three of its most important cantonal branches, the article argues that the organisational dominance of the SVP’s central leadership was beneficial for the party’s electoral strength but will lead to tensions with cantonal and local branches, which are largely in charge, to build and maintain an active base.
Research Interests: Public Administration, Political Economy, Voting Behavior, Political Science, Ideology, and 15 morePolitical communication, Social Media, Organizational structure, Organizational Development, Membership, Political Power, Switzerland, Schweiz, Organisationsentwicklung, Party, Politikwissenschaft, Politische Kommunikation, Centralization, soziale Medien, and Wahlverhalten
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
There is emerging understanding in the literature that voters who have a migration background across Western countries tend to vote for left leaning parties. Yet little is known about whether this implies different drivers of vote choice... more
There is emerging understanding in the literature that voters who have a migration background across Western countries tend to vote for left leaning parties. Yet little is known about whether this implies different drivers of vote choice for citizens with migration background in comparison to natives. This article intends to respond to this question by studying the impact of specific policy issue considerations on the vote of citizens with both migration and non-migration background. To do so, we focus on the 2015 and 2019 Swiss National elections, relying on data from the SELECTS post-electoral studies. Our analyses show that, while Swiss natives' voting choices are consistently affected by key political issues (i.e., foreigners' job market integration and the environment respectively), non-native voters are generally less driven by the main topics discussed at each election, although relevant differences emerge across different migrant backgrounds.
Research Interests:
There is emerging understanding in the literature that voters who have a migration background across Western countries tend to vote for left leaning parties. Yet little is known about whether this implies different drivers of vote choice... more
There is emerging understanding in the literature that voters who have a migration background across Western countries tend to vote for left leaning parties. Yet little is known about whether this implies different drivers of vote choice for citizens with migration background in comparison to natives. This article intends to respond to this question by studying the impact of specific policy issue considerations on the vote of citizens with both migration and non-migration background. To do so, we focus on the 2015 and 2019 Swiss National elections, relying on data from the SELECTS post-electoral studies. Our analyses show that, while Swiss natives' voting choices are consistently affected by key political issues (i.e., foreigners' job market integration and the environment respectively), non-native voters are generally less driven by the main topics discussed at each election, although relevant differences emerge across different migrant backgrounds.
Research Interests:
This paper investigates the role of gender in shaping attitudes towards the European Union (EU) among young people living in Polish cities – the so-called ‘winners of European integration’. Previously, little attention has been given to... more
This paper investigates the role of gender in shaping attitudes towards the European Union (EU) among young people living in Polish cities – the so-called ‘winners of European integration’. Previously, little attention has been given to gender as an influence on views on the EU. Most studies apply the gender-based perspective on Western Europe, while Central and Eastern European countries remain understudied. Based on theories on public opinion, I employ a mixed-methods approach, conducting a survey among 815 MA students living in Polish cities, followed by 27 semi-structured interviews. This analysis of gender-related attitudes towards the EU offers nuanced insights into transitions within post-communist societies. My findings posit that the sampled well-educated women are more likely to support EU integration than men. Education, gender-based individual cost-benefit analyses, and the perceptions of national politics are possible explanations for the positive attitudes towards the ...
Research Interests:
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Research Interests:
The Swiss People’s Party (Schweizerische Volkspartei [SVP]) has increased its territorial extensiveness and organisational intensiveness in recent years, and has professionalised its strategies of communication. This article analyses the... more
The Swiss People’s Party (Schweizerische Volkspartei [SVP]) has increased its territorial extensiveness and organisational intensiveness in recent years, and has professionalised its strategies of communication. This article analyses the dynamics characterising the SVP’s organisation. It shows that with its locally rooted presence and its effort to generate ideological coherence, the party has embraced the “mass party” organisational model. It additionally assesses the extent to which the SVP’s centralised power at the federal level is conducive to the party’s further electoral success. Having considered both the party at national level and three of its most important cantonal branches, the article argues that the organisational dominance of the SVP’s central leadership was beneficial for the party’s electoral strength but will lead to tensions with cantonal and local branches, which are largely in charge, to build and maintain an active base.
Research Interests:
In a review into automated and malicious activity Twitter released a list of accounts that they believed were connected to state sponsored manipulation of the 2016 American Election. This list details 2,752 accounts Twitter believed to be... more
In a review into automated and malicious activity Twitter released a list of accounts that they believed were connected to state sponsored manipulation of the 2016 American Election. This list details 2,752 accounts Twitter believed to be controlled by Russian operatives. In the absence of a similar list of operatives active within the debate on the 2016 UK referendum on membership of the European Union (Brexit) we investigated the behaviour of the same American Election focused accounts in the production of content related to the UK-EU referendum. We found that within our dataset we had Brexit-related content from 419 of these accounts, leading to 3,485 identified tweets gathered between the 29th August 2015 and 3rd October 2017. The behaviour of the accounts altered radically on the day of the referendum, shifting from generalised disruptive tweeting to retweeting each other in order to amplify content produced by other troll accounts. We also demonstrate that, while these account...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Twitter has identified 2,752 accounts that it believes are linked to the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian company that creates online propaganda. These accounts are known to have tweeted about the US 2016 Elections and the list... more
Twitter has identified 2,752 accounts that it believes are linked to the Internet Research Agency (IRA), a Russian company that creates online propaganda. These accounts are known to have tweeted about the US 2016 Elections and the list was submitted as evidence by Twitter to the United States Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism. There is no equivalent officially published list of accounts from the IRA known to be active in the UK-EU Referendum debate (Brexit), but we found that the troll accounts active on the 2016 US Election also produced content related to Brexit. We found 3,485 tweets from 419 of the accounts listed as IRA accounts which specifically discussed Brexit and related topics such as the EU and migration. We have been collating an archive of tweets related to Brexit since August 2015 and currently have over 70 million tweets. The Brexit referendum took place on the 23rd June 2016 and the UK voted to leave the European Union. We gathered the data using the Twitter API and a selection of hashtags chosen by a panel of academic experts. Currently we have in excess of fifty different hashtags and we add to the set periodically to accurately represent the evolving conversation. Twitter has closed the accounts that were documented in the Senate list meaning that these tweets are no longer available through the webpage or API. Due to Twitter's terms of service we are unable to share specific tweet text or user profile information but our findings, utilising text and metadata from derived and aggregated data, allows us to provide important insights into the behaviour of these trolls.
Research Interests:
ABSTRACT The global network opened for Poland after the fall of the communist system but especially after it became a member state of the European Union (EU). With accession to the EU came also the option of free movement and... more
ABSTRACT The global network opened for Poland after the fall of the communist system but especially after it became a member state of the European Union (EU). With accession to the EU came also the option of free movement and transnational mobility. This opportunity in turn created new possibilities for urban residents but the scholarly focus on macro-structural factors may overlook the impact of individual resources and local surroundings on exit strategies of well-educated Polish citizens. Based on semi-structured interviews with MA students in three Polish cities, this study evaluates how satisfaction with urban living conditions, perceived benefits of EU membership and place attachment affect the propensity to move amongst the urban educated youth. The results confirm a complex interaction of sense of belonging and individual cost-benefit analyses when the sampled students evaluate options to leave or stay.
Research Interests:
The future of the European Union (EU) increasingly depends on the attitudes and opinions of its citizens. This article examines constructions of attitudes towards European integration among young r...
Research Interests:
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Research Interests:
Globalization and European integration, newly emerging intergovernmental networks, economic globalization and the erosion of national borders have increased the room for manoeuvre of city councils. On the one hand, cities benefit from... more
Globalization and European integration, newly emerging intergovernmental networks, economic globalization and the erosion of national borders have increased the room for manoeuvre of city councils. On the one hand, cities benefit from horizontal networks, contacts and transnational flows of goods and people. On the other hand, city governments are forced to promote their urban space as an arena for individual opportunities to enhance the attractiveness for foreign investors and highly qualified labour. There has, been little attempt to examine these urban developments and strategy-led factors within Central Europe. Contemporary scholars refer almost exclusively to Western Europe when analysing the role of urban governments in inter-urban competitions. This is surprising as Central European cities experienced major changes as a result of de-sovietisation accompanied by processes of globalisation and European integration. This paper focuses on a case study from Poznan, Poland and anal...
The Swiss People's Party (Schweizerische Volkspartei [SVP]) has increased its territorial extensiveness and organizational intensiveness in recent years, and has professionalised its strategies of communication. This article analyses the... more
The Swiss People's Party (Schweizerische Volkspartei [SVP]) has increased its territorial extensiveness and organizational intensiveness in recent years, and has professionalised its strategies of communication. This article analyses the dynamics characterising the SVP's organization. It shows that with its locally rooted presence and its effort to generate ideological coherence, the party has embraced the "mass party" organizational model. It additionally assesses the extent to which the SVP's centralised power at the federal level is conducive to the party's further electoral success. Having considered both the party at national level and three of its most important cantonal branches, the article argues that the organizational dominance of the SVP's central leadership was beneficial for the party's electoral strength but will lead to tensions with cantonal and local branches, which are largely in charge, to build and maintain an active base.
Research Interests:
The future of the European Union (EU) increasingly depends on the attitudes and opinions of its citizens. This article examines constructions of attitudes towards European integration among young residents living in urban centres in... more
The future of the European Union (EU) increasingly depends on the attitudes and opinions of its citizens. This article examines constructions of attitudes towards European integration among young residents living in urban centres in Poland. Work conducted in the field of European studies shows that territorial attachment and utilitarian approaches can shape attitudes towards the EU. Using a mixed-methods approach, this study analyses these social and political processes among 324 MA students living in five Polish cities. The results confirm a complex interaction of cost-benefit calculations and attachment-related mechanisms that shape support for EU integration within the sampled group.
This paper investigates the role of gender in shaping attitudes towards the European Union (EU) among young people living in Polish cities-the so-called 'winners of European integration'. Previously, little attention has been given to... more
This paper investigates the role of gender in shaping attitudes towards the European Union (EU) among young people living in Polish cities-the so-called 'winners of European integration'. Previously, little attention has been given to gender as an influence on views on the EU. Most studies apply the gender-based perspective on Western Europe, while Central and Eastern European countries remain understudied. Based on theories on public opinion, I employ a mixed-methods approach, conducting a survey among 815 MA students living in Polish cities, followed by 27 semi-structured interviews. This analysis of gender-related attitudes towards the EU offers nuanced insights into transitions within post-communist societies. My findings posit that the sampled well-educated women are more likely to support EU integration than men. Education, gender-based individual cost-benefit analyses, and the perceptions of national politics are possible explanations for the positive attitudes towards the EU among the sampled women.
Research Interests:
In 2017 Twitter released a list of 2,752 accounts believed to be connected to state‐sponsored Russian operative manipulation of the 2016 American Election. We investigate the behaviour of these accounts in the UK–EU referendum using our... more
In 2017 Twitter released a list of 2,752 accounts believed to be connected to state‐sponsored Russian operative manipulation of the 2016 American Election. We investigate the behaviour of these accounts in the UK–EU referendum using our own unique longitudinal Twitter dataset. We identify Brexit‐related content from 419 of these accounts, totalling 3,485 tweets between 29 August 2015 and 3 October 2017. While these accounts were primarily designed to resemble American citizens, accounts created in 2016 contained German and Italian locations and terms in user profiles, suggesting targeting of wider international electoral processes. Brexit was one of many targets, likely indicating coordinated repurposing of ‘troll’ activity over time. We analyze behavioural shifts in account behaviour in relation to external events, introducing a temporal dimension not typical of political Twitter studies. The ‘troll’ account behaviour altered radically on UK–EU referendum day, shifting from generalized disruptive tweeting to retweeting other troll accounts to amplify their effect.
Research Interests:
The global network opened for Poland after the fall of the communistsystem but especially after it became a member state of the EuropeanUnion (EU). With accession to the EU came also the option of freemovement and transnational mobility.... more
The global network opened for Poland after the fall of the communistsystem but especially after it became a member state of the EuropeanUnion (EU). With accession to the EU came also the option of freemovement and transnational mobility. This opportunity in turn creatednew possibilities for urban residents but the scholarly focus on macro-structural factors may overlook the impact of individual resources andlocal surroundings on exit strategies of well-educated Polish citizens.Based on semi-structured interviews with MA students in three Polishcities, this study evaluates how satisfaction with urban living conditions,perceived benefits of EU membership and place attachment affect thepropensity to move amongst the urban educated youth. The resultsconfirm a complex interaction of sense of belonging and individualcost-benefit analyses when the sampled students evaluate options toleave or stay.