Hi! I am an Associate Professor of Political Communication and Journalism at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR), University of Amsterdam. I hold a PhD in political science from the University of Geneva (2010).

 

My research focuses on the dark side of political communication, voting behaviour, political psychology, and campaigning effects, and follows five main research lines: (i) dynamics of negative campaigning and political incivility, (ii) the (dark) personality of voters and political leaders, (iii) mechanisms of persuasion and emotions in politics, (iv), populism and the far-right, and (v) direct democracy and referenda.

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I am currently directing a research project that maps the use of negative campaigning in elections across the world, which has already collected data for 190+ elections since June 2016 based on judgments of 2,200+ country experts. Version 2.0 of the NEGex dataset can be downloaded for free here. I am also interested in dynamics of meta-science, and am currently directing a large-scale study about peer reviewing practices in social sciences worldwide.

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I am an Associate Editor at the Journal of Elections, Public Opinion & Parties and the Journal of Social and Political Psychology.

 

I am currently working on two books: The Psychology of Negative Electoral Campaigns. Perceptions, Evaluations, and Effects (with L. Otto, out in 2024 at Routledge), and the Elgar Encyclopedia of Political Communication (with M. Grömping & D. Wirz, out in 2025 at Edward Elgar Publishing).

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You can check out my published books and articles here. Replication data and materials for my recent publications can be found in my Open Science Foundation (OSF) repository.