Een vaak gebruikt argument van voorstanders van de opkomsplicht is dat het de algemene betrokkenheid bij de politiek verhoogt omdat alle kiezers zich meer zullen informeren. In ons onderzoek rond de Belgische lokale verkiezingen van 2024, vinden we geen steun voor dit argument!

🚨New publication (with Shane Singh) in @poqjournal.bsky.social! Proponents of compulsory voting often claim that obligatory turnout will increase citizens' political involvement, equalising levels of democratic attitudes and political engagement in the electorate. But does it? 👇

Voters for extreme right protest parties have lower levels of subjective well-being, @stevendekeyser.bsky.social, @dieterstiers.bsky.social and I show in a new article in Journal of Happiness Studies @isqols.bsky.social . The effect, however, is almost fully mediated by anti-immigrant sentimens.

🚨 I'm recruiting a PhD student for a new project on Parties' social group ownership, based in the @vd-researchgroup.bsky.social research group at KU Leuven! Deadline for applying is 26 June, estimated starting date is 1 Oct 2026. All info is here 👉 www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jo... Share widely!

🆕 Avoidance is spreading 🫣 @marchooghe.bsky.social & @dieterstiers.bsky.social use BelREP panel data to ask what influence news avoidance has on congruent #Voting among those with lower levels of political understanding buff.ly/5WeB9RD

www.cambridge.org/core/journal... 'News avoidance' is spreading quickly among younger generations. Is this just a media preference, or does it have democratic consequences? @dieterstiers.bsky.social and I show that it leads to less correct voting, thus underming representative democracy.

Happy to be on the committee for the new David Howell Award. Looking forward to reading your submissions!

Ik kijk heel erg uit naar deze lezing van @tomwgvdmeer.bsky.social ! Ben je op 26 maart in Leuven of in de buurt, schrijf dan zeker in! 👇

New publication out (with Chloé De Grauwe) in @eupthejournal.bsky.social! In it, we study economic voting in European Parliamentary Elections. What do we find?👇

📣 SAVE THE DATE 📣 Prof. Dr. Richard Katz (Johns Hopkins) will deliver a lecture at Ghent University on 19 March 2026 on the occasion of receiving an honorary doctorate. 📍 Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat 41, Ghent (Room 3.1) 🕑 2:00–3:00 PM Open to all (registration required): tinyurl.com/3w95646v

Very nice collaboration with @rafreuse.bsky.social out now in @electoralstudies.bsky.social. See his thread below for more details!

Looking forward to presenting my ongoing work on the consequences of (abolishing) compulsory voting. Feel free to join!

In summer 2024 @dieterstiers.bsky.social and I made a (publicly available) forecast on the consequences of abolishing turnout for the October 2024 elections in Belgium. Our forecasting model correctly predicted the effect of gender and political interest. Now out in Int. Journal of Forecasting.

Er is nog tijd om in te schrijven voor de lezing van Francqui Chair @bramwauters.bsky.social op dinsdag 2 december. Inschrijven kan via deze link: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... Niet te missen!

‼️ Onze onderzoeksgroep @vd-researchgroup.bsky.social verwelkomt dit academiejaar @bramwauters.bsky.social als Francqui leerstoelhouder! 📆 Het openingscollege gaat door op 2 dec om 17u30 Voor meer info en om in te schrijven voor dit *niet te missen* college, zie hier soc.kuleuven.be/afdeling-pol...

🚨 NEW in @bjpols.bsky.social : When Partygate hit Westminster, trust in Scottish politicians increased. Our experiments reveal a "contrast effect" - scandals at one level can make the other look better by comparison. Who lost most trust in Westminster? Scottish unionists. Read now #OpenAccess 👇

Today I celebrate my 10th academic birthday (since start PhD) and it's nice to be able to do that with a little milestone of itself!

With the start of the new academic year, we're planning more talks at @vd-researchgroup.bsky.social! Looking forward to welcoming @bjornhoyland.bsky.social in Leuven on Monday 20 October. If you're around and would like to attend, more info is here 👇 soc.kuleuven.be/afdeling-pol...

The first, but definitely not the last, publication of @stevendekeyser.bsky.social! Be sure to follow him to stay up-to-date about his work on federalism, regionalist parties, and voting behaviour in divided societies!

📢 Call for Papers for EPSS 2026 conference in Belfast is out: epssnet.org/belfast-2026... Starting today, we'll feature two sections each week to provide more information about the conference. 🔝 This week: Electoral + Voting Behaviour & Climate Politics ▶️ Electoral + Voting Behaviour 🧵

🚨📢 We’re hiring a Postdoc in Computational Political Science at the University of Antwerp! 💻 Focus: NLP + ML + political text analysis 🗳️ Project: ERC DEMO-LIES (disinformation in democracies) 🌍 Location: Antwerp, 🇧🇪 📅 Deadline: 16 Oct 2025 www.uantwerpen.be/en/jobs/vaca...

For a data collection we want to launch soon, we're looking for a German speaker who could translate our survey instrument to German. This should only take a few hours of work. Of course we are remunerating! Interested? Please reach out to @alexjabbour.bsky.social !

Do generous welfare policies foster political trust? Matthijs Gillissen, @silkegoubin.bsky.social & Anna Ruelens examine the long-term effects of welfare generosity on trust in political institutions. Read more: buff.ly/tBe6gLG @polstudiesassoc.bsky.social @uoypolitics.bsky.social @sagepub.com

Can elections foster political legitimacy? In my new study @wepsocial.bsky.social I show that they can, depending on the level of participation, the congruence between the electorate and the parliament and government, and the reactiveness of the electoral result to past incumbent performance.

Net als bij volwassen kiezers, is een laag vertrouwen in de politiek een belangrijke reden om op radicale partijen te stemmen. Jongeren hebben, op dat vlak, dus best gelijkaardige stemmotieven als volwassen kiezers.

‼️ There are a few more days left to apply for the PhD positions in my group at KU Leuven. Make sure to send in applications by July 4! 👇

If theoretical models of turnout are effective, do they allow predicting who will abstain from voting? Leveraging a unique situation in Belgium, @marchooghe.bsky.social and I pre-registered predicted turnout of panel respondents, and find that we can indeed predict participation quite accurately.

📣 We are looking for two new colleagues! Are you interested in doing research on either socio-demographic cues to estimate politicians' ideological positions or in losers' consent in the context of salient policy decisions? More information below 👇

The Voting & Democracy research group is now active on Bluesky. Make sure to follow us @kuleuvenuniversity.bsky.social‬ to stay up to date with our latest research!

📢 Have you recently defended your PhD in political science in The Netherlands, Belgium or Luxembourg? PLC is looking for PhD Summaries and Reviews! #PhDOpportunity #PhDGraduates #PoliticalScience #AcademicPublishing #PhDResearch #EarlyCareerResearchers 🧵

Hebben leerkrachten echt een specifiek ideologisch profiel? Sari Verachtert en @dieterstiers.bsky.social tonen in een onderzoek bij Vlaamse leerkrachten aan dat ze ideologisch gematigd zijn, extreme partijen vermijden, en neutraliteit belangrijk vinden. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

🇧🇪New article! "Who decides what are second-order elections? A study of ticket-splitting in simultaneous federal and regional elections in Belgium" by @dieterstiers.bsky.social and @marchooghe.bsky.social www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

In Belgium, federal and regional elections are held simultaneously. What does this imply for the traditional second-order model? @dieterstiers.bsky.social and I have asked voters, and the result is that for most voters, both levels are equally important. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

In “The Authentic A**hole: Candidate Consistency, Causality, and the Vote,” @sofiabrei.bsky.social, @johnkenny.bsky.social, @jaclarner.bsky.social, Dieter Stiers, and Michael S. Lewis-Beck make use of a survey vignette experiment in Britain.

🚨 New open-access publication out in the European Journal of Political Research! @markuskollberg.bsky.social and I examine how coalition government performance shapes affective polarization between coalition partners—and find that it matters. 🧵 1/6 ejpr.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Doing cool research on elections, public opinion and/or parties? Don't forget to submit your abstract for EPOP 2025 before the end of April. Link to the form here: forms.office.com/e/4wBNMq4qwi Come share your work with an awesome group of scholars! Any questions, contact [email protected] 😊

The next #CNES Seminar on May 13th will discuss #sampling in challenging circumstances 🤔💡and feature presentations by Laura Stephenson (Canadian Election Study) and @rdassonneville.bsky.social & @dieterstiers.bsky.social (Belgian election studies). Register now to attend this free online event!👇

🔥🔈Vacancy announcement We invite applications for the co-editorship of the @ecpr.bsky.social @oxfordunipress.bsky.social book series We’d appreciate your help in sharing the announcement to ensure our publications committee receives as many strong applications as possible 🤞

Very happy that our study (with @marchooghe.bsky.social and Michael Lewis-Beck) is now a #TopCitedArticle in Politics & Policy! In the study, we examine whether the electoral college grew more disproportional over the last century. See: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

We're excited to host @lalamur.bsky.social at the Centre for Voting & Democracy on 25 March for the launch of her Cambridge Element! We'll have a discussion of the book with comments from Karen Celis, @annakern.bsky.social and @neerdaels.bsky.social Join us for this event if you're around!

Our first article on the 2024 elections in Belgium, exploring the rightward shift of voters in the Walloon Region, is out in French Politics! 👇

Looking forward to this #CNES seminar in which @dieterstiers.bsky.social and I will be sharing insights from our experiences fielding voter surveys in Belgium!

📢 Call for Papers 📢 Working on gender, representation and democratic processes? Join us in Groningen for the next PolEtmaal (12-13 June) and the second “Breaking Barriers, Bridging Gaps” workshop! 📅 Submission Deadline: March 31, 2025 👉 politicologenetmaal.eu/call-for-pap...

📣Summer school on "Challenges to Electoral Democracy", Paris, July 1-5, 2025📣 Organized with @rdassonneville.bsky.social @fondationmsh.bsky.social @cerium-udem.bsky.social More information and applications here👇

Interested in pursuing a PhD in comparative politics (institutions, behaviour, representation, parties)? We have a four-year position at our department, with great conditions, lots of freedom and a reasonable teaching load. Get in touch if you have questions! jobs.univie.ac.at/job/Universi...

New study out in @polbehavior.bsky.social! 👇

📢 VACATURE 📢 GASPAR is op zoek naar een PhD student/Assistent Politieke Wetenschappen (6 jaar) 📅 Deadline: 21 januari 2025 jobs.ugent.be/job/Gent-Ass...

📣 In deze studie, gepubliceerd in Party Politics, tonen we (@jbpilet) o.b.v. een experiment in België aan dat als mainstream partijen claimen bereid te zijn om te regeren met radicaal-rechts, dit radicaal-rechts legitimeert & electoraal voordeel oplevert 👇 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

We're super excited to welcome @jatucker.bsky.social at our brand new research group on Voting & Democracy at KU Leuven on 23 January for a keynote talk. The talk is co-organized with @cses.bsky.social. Do sign up and join us if you're around then!

JOB OPPPORTUNITY! Join us for a 3 yr postdoc at the fantastic @nuffieldcollege.bsky.social to work on a fascinating economic security (and politics) project with new panel data - be our colleague and valued co-author. Please share/repost. Thank you! www.nuffield.ox.ac.uk/the-college/...