🆕 What kind of personalities are drawn to politics? 🗳️ This cross-national study across 🇨🇦🇩🇰🇮🇱🇳🇱🇨🇭 explores #Representation and how honesty-humility and other HEXACO personality traits shape people’s ambition to run for office 🧵1/2 buff.ly/xk4qMa3

#OpenAccess from @ejprjournal.bsky.social - Too honest and humble to run for office? Citizens’ personality traits, nascent ambition, and recruitment - https://cup.org/4ncO4c0 - Marc van de Wardt, P.Bundi, P.J.Loewen, @annerasmussen.bsky.social, @liorsheffer.bsky.social#OpenAccess& F.Varone #FirstView

Over a year ago (!) Roee Levy and I wrote this op-ed (that you can auto-translate) on Israel's responsibility for the horrifying famine in Gaza. The starvation persists. The immoral war in Gaza must end. If you can, protest with us today: 7pm, Habima Square, Tel Aviv www.ynet.co.il/news/article...

Now in @ispp-pops.bsky.social: what type of personality do citizens want their leaders to have? In a series of studies conducted in Belgium, Canada, and Israel, we present citizens with profiles of potential leaders with different personality configurations drawn using the Big Five traits /1

From February 2025 - Do Political Leaders Understand Public Opinion Better than Backbenchers? - cup.org/3CNR4dt - Stefaan Walgrave, Julie Sevenans, Frédéric Varone, @liorsheffer.bsky.social & @breunig.bsky.social #OpenAccess

Really enjoyed this conversation with @jerusalem.bsky.social about our new paper on politicians' theories of voting behaviour. Such a thrill to be a guest on one of my favourite podcasts! www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/arc...

The most important paper on democratic backsliding I've read this year

🚨Why do masses support democratic backsliding?🚨 A new @AJPS_Editor paper with Yotam Margalit, @liorsheffer.bsky.social and Itamar Yakir explores this question in the Israeli context. Our findings emphasize the role of leader attachment and affective polarization. doi.org/10.1111/ajps...

Now in @bjpols.bsky.social: Are leaders really better at reading public opinion? In a large-scale study led by Stefaan Walgrave and Julie Sevenans, we test the assumption that politicians in leadership positions have more accurate knowledge of public opinion than others. /1 doi.org/10.1017/S000...

This paper joins a couple of others demonstrating that politicians have a conservative bias in their expectations of public opinion. This work is hugely illuminative of elite attitudes and so is of vital interest to activists pursuing progressive change

Very cool paper! Well worth your time if you study elite decision-making or elections and accountability.

Now in APSR: What do politicians think about their voters? Fielding face-to-face surveys to 982 sitting politicians in 11 countries, and accompanying surveys of 12,000 citizens, we find that politicians have remarkably consistent - and cynical - theories of voters: /1 doi.org/10.1017/S000...

New paper with @liorsheffer.bsky.social and Peter Loewen in Political Behavior about politicians’ congruence with citizens, their knowledge of citizens, and – especially – the relationship between the two pathways to representation. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

New working paper with Nic Dias and @liorsheffer.bsky.social. We show that politicians' over-estimation of constituents' conservatism is reduced by half when politicians are allowed to characterize their constituents' attitudes as a distribution, rather than a point estimate. doi.org/10.31219/osf...

Now in Political Psychology: Why are some politicians more hostile than others? Do politicians as a group feel more partisan animosity than citizens? @lucasjacklucas and I report results from a study of 850 politicians and 28,500 citizens to provide first answers: /1 doi.org/10.1111/pops.12974

Excited to share my new publication in the International Journal of Press/Politics with my brilliant friends Yossi David, @noamgidron.bsky.social & @liorsheffer.bsky.social! Imagined audiences have been studied for decades - but what do we know about imagined journalists? >> shorturl.at/klovF

Now in @EJPRjournal: Are Politicians Democratic Realists? Social scientists debate whether citizens are competent participants in the political game, but where politicians stand on this question is far more consequential, and yet we know virtually nothing about their views. /1

Now in EJPR: Can elections reduce partisan hostility? @noamgidron.bsky.social and I tracked 1,000 voters throughout the 2021 election in Israel, in which Netanyahu was temporarily ousted by a short-lived, improbable coalition whose member parties were highly hostile to each other. /1

Check out this great special issue on comparative affective polarization -- including my paper with @liorsheffer.bsky.social and Guy Mor: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Israel's democratic crisis provides us with an opportunity to explore, in real time, who supports democratic backsliding. Our new working paper (w\ Noam Gidron, Yotam Margalit and Itamar Yakir) examines this issue using original pre- and post-reform panel data. Here's what we find: osf.io/zxukm/