I am a professor of political methodology, a computational social scientist, as well as a political psychologist stationed at the University of Zurich in beautiful Switzerland. My methodological interests relate to choice models, multilevel analysis, measurement, causal inference, network science, and deep learning. In political psychology, I have studied attitudinal ambivalence, values, information processing, belief updating, and decision making. Geographically, my focus is on the Americas and Europe. My current research interests concern consideration sets, polarization, and democratic innovation. Supervisors: Willem Saris and Stanley Feldman Address: Affolternstrasse 56 8050 Zurich Switzerland
2 data files, 1 documentation fileThe Chapel Hill expert surveys estimate party positioning on Eu... more 2 data files, 1 documentation fileThe Chapel Hill expert surveys estimate party positioning on European integration, ideology and policy issues for national parties in a variety of European countries. The first survey was conducted in 1999, with subsequent waves in 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, 2019. The number of countries increased from 14 Western European countries in 1999 to 24 current or prospective EU members in 2006 to 31 countries in 2019. In this time, the number of national parties grew from 143 to 277. The 2019 survey includes all EU member states, plus parties in Norway, Switzerland, and Turkey. Separate surveys were conducted in the Balkan candidate countries. Questions on parties' general position on European integration, several EU policies, general left/right, economic left/right, and social left/right are common to all surveys. More recent surveys also contain questions on non-EU policy issues, such as anti-elite rhetoric, immigration, redistribution, decentralization, and environmental policy. For more information on the CHES data project, please see: https://chesdata.eu. When using the data, please cite: Bakker, Ryan, Liesbet Hooghe, Seth Jolly, Gary Marks, Jonathan Polk, Jan Rovny, Marco Steenbergen, and Milada Anna Vachudova. 2020. “1999 − 2019 Chapel Hill Expert Survey Trend File.” Version 1.0
Right-wing populist parties in European democracies appeal to citizens’ feelings of uncertainty r... more Right-wing populist parties in European democracies appeal to citizens’ feelings of uncertainty related to globalization by promoting tough immigration laws and curbing the power of the European Union. This article adds to our understanding of how individuals’ risk propensity relates to support for right-wing populist parties and their ideas in the context of globalization. In particular, by drawing on survey data from the United Kingdom we investigate how this personality trait relates to support for the United Kingdom Independence Party and the vote for a British exit from the European Union. The article explores the complex interplay between risk propensity and right-wing populist appeals by dissecting the direct, indirect and total effects of this trait.
This article addresses the variation of anti-corruption and anti-elite salience in party position... more This article addresses the variation of anti-corruption and anti-elite salience in party positioning across Europe. It demonstrates that while anti-corruption salience is primarily related to the (regional) context in which a party operates, anti-elite salience is primarily a function of party ideology. Extreme left and extreme conservative (TAN) parties are significantly more likely to emphasize anti-elite views. Through its use of the new 2014 Chapel Hill Expert Survey wave, this article also introduces the dataset.
In the study of deliberation, classical representative institutions such as legislatures have bee... more In the study of deliberation, classical representative institutions such as legislatures have been largely neglected.1 While students of deliberation have mainly focused on the deliberation in the civic sphere, students of legislatures have mainly concentrated on formal outcomes (e.g., votes) and how these are affected by institutional rules and legislators preferences. One reason for neglecting the topic of deliberation in the context of legislatures is that many political scientists do not conceive of them as genuine deliberative bodies. A fairly typical example is Uhr (1998) who argues that while the major purpose of legislatures is indeed debate and diversity, it does not imply unanimity and rational consensus. While we certainly do not deny that adversarial and rhetorical forms of debate play an important role in legislative interactions, we think that genuine and consequential deliberation is possible in legislatures, but — in line with new institutionally oriented research programs on legislatures (see Doring, 1995) — that this is largely dependent on favorable institutional contexts.
Reconnecting political philosophy with empirical or positive political science has become a resou... more Reconnecting political philosophy with empirical or positive political science has become a resounding call in the discipline (Rothstein 2004). As Alexander Wendt (2001) bemoans, much positive political science is driving with the rearview mirror, by explaining what happened in the past while neglecting the question where we should go from here. But if one is to say something about the future, both "can" and "should" must be addressed. Yet, when normative philosophical concepts are to be integrated in positive political science, researchers may confront both theoretical and methodological challenges. Theoretically, they need to develop reconstructions of normative theories that can satisfy both philosophers and positive theorists. In other words, the theoretical bridges must be realistic enough without completely destroying the utopian content of philosophical constructs. As we shall argue in this article, such bridge-building activities can imply that metatheore...
We present a model of deliberative inclusion, focusing on reciprocity in the interaction between ... more We present a model of deliberative inclusion, focusing on reciprocity in the interaction between structural minorities/disadvantaged groups and majorities/privileged groups. Our model, however, comes with a ‘friendly amendment’: we have put the ‘burden of reciprocity’ mainly on majorities and privileged groups. It is mainly their obligation to seriously listen and respond to the demands and arguments of minorities and disadvantaged groups and show a willingness to respect and accommodate these interests. Empirically, we apply our model to the interaction of linguistic groups in the Swiss parliament. We find a highly egalitarian, sometimes even minority-favoring mode of interaction between the German-speaking majority and linguistic minorities. The German-speaking majority seems to be willing to take the ‘burden of reciprocity’ when linguistic minorities’ vital interests are concerned. Conversely, linguistic minorities are slightly more self-referential and adversarial under such con...
... DOMINIK HANGARTNER, ANDRÉ BÄCHTIGER, RITA GRÜNENFELDER AND MARCO R. STEENBERGEN University of... more ... DOMINIK HANGARTNER, ANDRÉ BÄCHTIGER, RITA GRÜNENFELDER AND MARCO R. STEENBERGEN University of Berne ... Focusing on real-world legislatures, we explore whether consensus systems, veto power, non-public arenas, issue contexts, as well as the gender ...
'Deliberative politics' refers to the role of conversation and arguments in politics. Unt... more 'Deliberative politics' refers to the role of conversation and arguments in politics. Until recently discussion of deliberative politics took place almost exclusively among political philosophers, but many questions raised in this philosophical discussion cry out for empirical investigation. This book provides the first extended empirical study of deliberative politics, addressing, in particular, questions of the preconditions and consequences of high level deliberation. Using parliamentary debates in Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States as an empirical base, the authors measure the level of deliberation by constructing a 'Discourse Quality Index'. As deliberative politics moves to the forefront of political theory, this book makes an important contribution to deliberative democracy.
The Oxford Handbook of Behavioral Political Science, 2018
Politics is a complex affair. Whether one is a legislator or a citizen, making political decision... more Politics is a complex affair. Whether one is a legislator or a citizen, making political decisions is rarely easy. The question of how people deal with this complexity has been on the minds of scholars for decades, if not centuries. One important answer, which emerged in the 1970s, is that decision makers rely on heuristics to tame the intricacies of politics. Heuristics are (cognitive) shortcuts that allow decision makers to bypass a great deal of information while producing an output in the form of a judgment or choice. Often such outputs are indistinguishable from what a complete consideration of the decision-relevant information would have produced. At other times the outputs may not be optimal, but they are good enough. It can also happen, however, that heuristics introduce formidable biases and result in inferior decisions. This chapter reviews the literature on heuristics use by the mass public and political elites. It discusses the kinds of heuristics that are used, how they...
How do political parties respond to external shocks? Using an original survey of political partie... more How do political parties respond to external shocks? Using an original survey of political parties across Europe conducted in June 2020 and CHES data on partisan ideological positioning, we argue that the pre-existing ideological stances of Europe's political parties shaped their response to emerging Covid-19 policy issues, including the tension between economic normalization and containment, legal versus voluntary enforcement, and the role of science in policymaking. We find that party ideology powerfully predicts how parties, both in government and in opposition, responded to the pandemic. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
2 data files, 1 documentation fileThe Chapel Hill expert surveys estimate party positioning on Eu... more 2 data files, 1 documentation fileThe Chapel Hill expert surveys estimate party positioning on European integration, ideology and policy issues for national parties in a variety of European countries. The first survey was conducted in 1999, with subsequent waves in 2002, 2006, 2010, 2014, 2019. The number of countries increased from 14 Western European countries in 1999 to 24 current or prospective EU members in 2006 to 31 countries in 2019. In this time, the number of national parties grew from 143 to 277. The 2019 survey includes all EU member states, plus parties in Norway, Switzerland, and Turkey. Separate surveys were conducted in the Balkan candidate countries. Questions on parties' general position on European integration, several EU policies, general left/right, economic left/right, and social left/right are common to all surveys. More recent surveys also contain questions on non-EU policy issues, such as anti-elite rhetoric, immigration, redistribution, decentralization, and environmental policy. For more information on the CHES data project, please see: https://chesdata.eu. When using the data, please cite: Bakker, Ryan, Liesbet Hooghe, Seth Jolly, Gary Marks, Jonathan Polk, Jan Rovny, Marco Steenbergen, and Milada Anna Vachudova. 2020. “1999 − 2019 Chapel Hill Expert Survey Trend File.” Version 1.0
Right-wing populist parties in European democracies appeal to citizens’ feelings of uncertainty r... more Right-wing populist parties in European democracies appeal to citizens’ feelings of uncertainty related to globalization by promoting tough immigration laws and curbing the power of the European Union. This article adds to our understanding of how individuals’ risk propensity relates to support for right-wing populist parties and their ideas in the context of globalization. In particular, by drawing on survey data from the United Kingdom we investigate how this personality trait relates to support for the United Kingdom Independence Party and the vote for a British exit from the European Union. The article explores the complex interplay between risk propensity and right-wing populist appeals by dissecting the direct, indirect and total effects of this trait.
This article addresses the variation of anti-corruption and anti-elite salience in party position... more This article addresses the variation of anti-corruption and anti-elite salience in party positioning across Europe. It demonstrates that while anti-corruption salience is primarily related to the (regional) context in which a party operates, anti-elite salience is primarily a function of party ideology. Extreme left and extreme conservative (TAN) parties are significantly more likely to emphasize anti-elite views. Through its use of the new 2014 Chapel Hill Expert Survey wave, this article also introduces the dataset.
In the study of deliberation, classical representative institutions such as legislatures have bee... more In the study of deliberation, classical representative institutions such as legislatures have been largely neglected.1 While students of deliberation have mainly focused on the deliberation in the civic sphere, students of legislatures have mainly concentrated on formal outcomes (e.g., votes) and how these are affected by institutional rules and legislators preferences. One reason for neglecting the topic of deliberation in the context of legislatures is that many political scientists do not conceive of them as genuine deliberative bodies. A fairly typical example is Uhr (1998) who argues that while the major purpose of legislatures is indeed debate and diversity, it does not imply unanimity and rational consensus. While we certainly do not deny that adversarial and rhetorical forms of debate play an important role in legislative interactions, we think that genuine and consequential deliberation is possible in legislatures, but — in line with new institutionally oriented research programs on legislatures (see Doring, 1995) — that this is largely dependent on favorable institutional contexts.
Reconnecting political philosophy with empirical or positive political science has become a resou... more Reconnecting political philosophy with empirical or positive political science has become a resounding call in the discipline (Rothstein 2004). As Alexander Wendt (2001) bemoans, much positive political science is driving with the rearview mirror, by explaining what happened in the past while neglecting the question where we should go from here. But if one is to say something about the future, both "can" and "should" must be addressed. Yet, when normative philosophical concepts are to be integrated in positive political science, researchers may confront both theoretical and methodological challenges. Theoretically, they need to develop reconstructions of normative theories that can satisfy both philosophers and positive theorists. In other words, the theoretical bridges must be realistic enough without completely destroying the utopian content of philosophical constructs. As we shall argue in this article, such bridge-building activities can imply that metatheore...
We present a model of deliberative inclusion, focusing on reciprocity in the interaction between ... more We present a model of deliberative inclusion, focusing on reciprocity in the interaction between structural minorities/disadvantaged groups and majorities/privileged groups. Our model, however, comes with a ‘friendly amendment’: we have put the ‘burden of reciprocity’ mainly on majorities and privileged groups. It is mainly their obligation to seriously listen and respond to the demands and arguments of minorities and disadvantaged groups and show a willingness to respect and accommodate these interests. Empirically, we apply our model to the interaction of linguistic groups in the Swiss parliament. We find a highly egalitarian, sometimes even minority-favoring mode of interaction between the German-speaking majority and linguistic minorities. The German-speaking majority seems to be willing to take the ‘burden of reciprocity’ when linguistic minorities’ vital interests are concerned. Conversely, linguistic minorities are slightly more self-referential and adversarial under such con...
... DOMINIK HANGARTNER, ANDRÉ BÄCHTIGER, RITA GRÜNENFELDER AND MARCO R. STEENBERGEN University of... more ... DOMINIK HANGARTNER, ANDRÉ BÄCHTIGER, RITA GRÜNENFELDER AND MARCO R. STEENBERGEN University of Berne ... Focusing on real-world legislatures, we explore whether consensus systems, veto power, non-public arenas, issue contexts, as well as the gender ...
'Deliberative politics' refers to the role of conversation and arguments in politics. Unt... more 'Deliberative politics' refers to the role of conversation and arguments in politics. Until recently discussion of deliberative politics took place almost exclusively among political philosophers, but many questions raised in this philosophical discussion cry out for empirical investigation. This book provides the first extended empirical study of deliberative politics, addressing, in particular, questions of the preconditions and consequences of high level deliberation. Using parliamentary debates in Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States as an empirical base, the authors measure the level of deliberation by constructing a 'Discourse Quality Index'. As deliberative politics moves to the forefront of political theory, this book makes an important contribution to deliberative democracy.
The Oxford Handbook of Behavioral Political Science, 2018
Politics is a complex affair. Whether one is a legislator or a citizen, making political decision... more Politics is a complex affair. Whether one is a legislator or a citizen, making political decisions is rarely easy. The question of how people deal with this complexity has been on the minds of scholars for decades, if not centuries. One important answer, which emerged in the 1970s, is that decision makers rely on heuristics to tame the intricacies of politics. Heuristics are (cognitive) shortcuts that allow decision makers to bypass a great deal of information while producing an output in the form of a judgment or choice. Often such outputs are indistinguishable from what a complete consideration of the decision-relevant information would have produced. At other times the outputs may not be optimal, but they are good enough. It can also happen, however, that heuristics introduce formidable biases and result in inferior decisions. This chapter reviews the literature on heuristics use by the mass public and political elites. It discusses the kinds of heuristics that are used, how they...
How do political parties respond to external shocks? Using an original survey of political partie... more How do political parties respond to external shocks? Using an original survey of political parties across Europe conducted in June 2020 and CHES data on partisan ideological positioning, we argue that the pre-existing ideological stances of Europe's political parties shaped their response to emerging Covid-19 policy issues, including the tension between economic normalization and containment, legal versus voluntary enforcement, and the role of science in policymaking. We find that party ideology powerfully predicts how parties, both in government and in opposition, responded to the pandemic. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved
This study develops and empirically substantiates a heuristic-systematic model of electoral behav... more This study develops and empirically substantiates a heuristic-systematic model of electoral behavior, in which we understand vote choice as a two-stage decision making process. In the rst stage voters use broad-based heuristics, such as partisanship, to narrow down all possible choice options to a few viable choices. This subset of choice alternatives constitutes the choice set. In a subsequent second stage voters engage in more systematic processing behavior using campaign issues to select a nal alternative from the choice set. We apply these ideas to the 1992 US presidential elections and introduce a choice set logistic regression (CSLR) model which allows for the examination of both stages of electoral choice. The empirical results demonstrate that the heuristic-systematic model of electoral choice allows us both to better understand the electoral competition between Bush, Clinton and Perot in 1992 and to discover which voters are more inclined to consider more than one choice option. Consequently, this study has important implications for students of voting behavior and electoral competition and enriches our understanding of voters' choices in third- or multi-party races.
All models contain parameters that drive their behavior. We do not know what the values of those ... more All models contain parameters that drive their behavior. We do not know what the values of those parameters are; they have to be estimated from our data. Estimation theory is concerned with developing principled ways to bring data to bear on the estimation process. The goal is to derive estimators-formulas that use the data to obtain a parameter estimate-with desirable properties. This is one half of the bigger process known as statistical inference. The other half is hypothesis testing. This is where the data are used to test a hypothesis about a specific value of a parameter. These notes describe one particular approach to estimation, namely maximum likelihood. Maximum likelihood estimation (or MLE) is a versatile approach that can handle a wide range of models, much wider than ordinary least squares. This is the reason why MLE forms the cornerstone of the course. MLE also generates estimators that, under certain general assumptions, have desirable asymptotic properties such as consistency and normality. Finally, MLE provides a unified framework toward both estimation and hypothesis testing [5]. The goal of these notes is to familiarize you with the idea of maximum likelihood, computational methods, as well as issues of which you should be aware. Consult this document as background to the applications of MLE in specific modeling contexts.
R is an outstanding platform for maximum likelihood programming. These notes describe the maxLik ... more R is an outstanding platform for maximum likelihood programming. These notes describe the maxLik package, a wrapper that gives access to the most important hill-climbing algorithms and provides a convenient way of displaying results. The notes also include a discussion of Wald confidence intervals and likelihood ratio tests.
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