PI, ERC Starting Grant, 2026-2031 Project title: “More Money, Different Problems? Peoples’ Engagement with Politics during Good Economic Times” Economic downturns can be a breeding ground for extremist politics. Yet, we know far less about how a good economy affects citizens’ interactions with politics. Despite massive wealth accumulation in established democracies, populism, misinformation, and group-based hostility continue to rise. Does national economic improvement affect the way people tune into politics and their commitment to democratic norms? ECONENGAGE fills this timely research gap by providing and testing an original theory on the impacts of economic improvement on the quality of people’s political engagement in established democracies. Starting with the point that improvement changes the stakes that people attach to politics, I will examine how this improvement affects their political information consumption, susceptibility to political misinformation, and the hardening of their ideological beliefs–all of which are central to democratic values – as well as their democratic attitudes.

ECONENGAGE is organized into four work packages (WPs). WP1 uncovers the criteria that different individuals use to define economic improvement, using existing and original survey data. In WP2, I will further examine the theoretical mechanisms and generate testable hypotheses for how economic improvement affects people’s political information processing and degree of entrenchment in their ideological beliefs. WP3 tests these hypotheses with cross-national survey data in OECD countries and three experiments in Sweden and the UK, countries that differ markedly in economic and political institutions. WP4 investigates the broader impacts of economic improvement on the stakes people attach to elections, preferences for democratic decision-making rules, and commitment to ideological pluralism. ECONENGAGE will provide us with novel tools to better understand vitally important global trends of rising misinformation and inter-group hostility and suggest ways to ensure vibrant democratic engagement in both good times and bad.

Co-Investigator, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, Sweden 2024-2027

• Project title: “Divided Parliaments? Polarization, Moralization, and the Risk of Gridlock.”

Principal Investigator, Marie Curie Individual Fellowship, The European Commission 2021-2024

• Project title “The Impacts of Economic Growth and Decline on Party Behavior”

Principal Investigator, Carlsberg Foundation Postdoctoral Grant, Denmark 2016-2018

• Project title: “Electoral Institutions and Political Divisiveness in Established Democracies”