Elisabeth Ivarsflaten is Professor of Political Science at the Department of Government, the University of Bergen. She heads the Research Group Democracy and Citizenship and serves as Scientific Director of the Digital Social Science Core Facility (DIGSSCORE). Ivarsflatens research focuses on public opinion and multiculturalism, motivation to control prejudice, extremism and far-right politics. Ivarsflaten is author of The Struggle for Inclusion: Muslim Minorities and the Democratic Ethos (Chicago University Press 2022, co-authored with Paul M. Sniderman) calling for a new research agenda on inclusive politics. Ivarsflaten’s work is published in journals such as American Journal of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, West European Politics, European Journal of Political Research. Ivarsflaten holds a B.A. from Columbia University (2000) and a D.Phil (2006) from the University of Oxford. She was a Postdoctoral Prize Research Fellow at Nuffield College, The University of Oxford before she joined the permanent faculty at the University of Bergen.
Paul M. Sniderman is the Fairleigh S. Dickinson Jr. Professor in Public Policy at Stanford University. Sniderman’s research focuses on multiculturalism and politics in Western Europe and spatial reasoning. Sniderman has written many books, the most recent being The Struggle for Inclusion: Muslims and Liberal Democracy (University of Chicago Press, 2022) coauthored with Elisabeth Ivarsflaten. Sniderman received his B.A. degree (philosophy) from the University of Toronto and his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California, Berkeley. He has received many rewards for his work, among others the Ralph J. Bunche Award, 2003.
Stefan Dahlberg is Chair Professor in Political Science at the Department of Humanities and Social Science at the Mid Sweden University and Research Director at the Digital Social Science Core Facility (DIGSSCORE) at the Department of Government, University of Bergen. He is PI for the Swedish European Value Study (EVS), and he also serves as a member of the EVS scientific committee. He has formerly been the director for the Quality of Government institute’s awarded databases. Dahlberg is since 2022 chairman of the board for the national research infrastructure for Democracy, Environment, Migration, Social policy, Conflict, and Representation (DEMSCORE). His research interests include comparative politics and political behavior in terms of political representation, voting behavior and survey methodology. Recent publications have appeared in Journal of Politics, Public Opinion Quarterly, Electoral Studies and West European Politics.
Linn A.C. Sandberg is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Comparative Politics at the University of Bergen, specializing in the impact of digital technology on political communication and representation. Her scholarship focuses on online political hostility, the dynamics of populist movements and digital media in European politics, and the implications of data-driven political campaigning in Europe. Her research has been published in journals such as New Media & Society, Social Influence, and the Journal of Information Technology and Politics.
Lise L. Bjånesøy is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Bergen. She is coordinator of the research unit “Diversity and Inclusion” in the Norwegian Citizen Panel. Bjånesøy’s research focuses on public opinion and the populist radical right with a particular interest for questions concerning political tolerance, inclusion of minorities, and affective polarization. Her work is published in journals such as West European Politics, Scandinavian Political Studies, Journal of Refugee Studies, and Social Influence.
Marta R. Eidheim is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Bergen. Her research investigates how social identities and structural divides, including the urban-rural divide and class divides, relate to vote choice, political orientations and views on redistributions. Her work focuses also on survey experiments and ways of measuring social divides.
Ingrid K. Faleide is a PhD-candidate at the University of Bergen. Faleide’s doctoral project focuses on how citizens, elected, and unelected elites perceive the public opinion climate. Such «second-order opinions» are mapped on issues concerning inclusion of Muslim minorities and climate change policies. Taking advantage of modern survey techniques and experimental designs, her work explores various methods and procedures to measure second-order opinions.
Soran Hajo Dahl is a PhD-candidate at the University of Bergen. His doctoral project examines how citizens’ experience of disagreement is shaped by their knowledge and appraisals of the arguments of political opponents. To this end, he makes use of a novel research design based on survey experiments with open-ended survey questions.
Peter Esaiasson is Professor of Political Science at the University of Gothenburg. Esaiassons research focuses on democratic politics. He is particularly interested in what makes democracy work, and how we can make it work even better. His research is published in journals such as British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, European Journal of Political Research, Party Politics, and Electoral Studies.
Marc Helbling is Professor of Sociology at the University of Mannheim and a Research Fellow at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center. Helbling is a member of the German Expert Council on Integration and Migration and associate editor of the International Migration Review and the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. Helbling’s research focuses on immigration and citizenship policies, nationalism, national identities, xenophobia/islamophobia, and right-wing populism. He has received many awards for his works, among others the Young Scholar Research Award from the Mayor of Berlin. Helbling’s work is published in journals such as British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, European Journal of Political Research, Social Forces, among others.
Richard Traunmüller is Professor of Political Science at the University of Mannheim and scientific director of the German Internet Panel (GIP). Traunmüller’s research focuses the socio-structural and psycho-cultural requisites of democracy with a strong focus on problems of social cohesion and conflict. His current research involves the politics of free speech and censorship, citizens’ preferences for migration policy, the rural-urban political divide and the civic consequences of wartime sexual violence. Traunmüller is also very interested in quantitative political methodology, including Bayesian methods, data visualization and survey experiments. His work has been published in journals such as American Journal of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, and Political Analysis, among others.
Robert Ford is Professor of Political Science at the University of Manchester, Senior Fellow at the UK in a Changing Europe and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. Ford’s research focuses on topics such as immigration, national identity, racism and anti-racism and changing patterns of political choice. He is the author of several award-winning books including Revolt on the Right; Sex, Lies and the Ballot Box; Brexitland; and The British General Election of 2019. Rob has worked with the BBC elections analysis team since 2005, covering local, devolved, European and general elections, the Scottish independence referendum and the EU referendum and helping to produce the exit polls for the last five elections. Ford’s work is published in journals such as American Journal of Political Science, European Journal of Political Research, Comparative Political Studies, and Electoral Studies, among others.
Scott Blinder is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Blinder’s research focuses on public opinion toward and perceptions of immigration, and more broadly on issues of racial, ethnic, and gender identities in political behavior in the US and Europe. His work examines both the sources of political attitudes and perceptions (for example, in media coverage) and their impact on voting behavior and policy debates. Another key area of interest is the existence, and limitations of, a social norm against racial prejudice, and the extent to which this norm shapes the ability of radical right parties to mobilize voters. Blinder’s work is published in journals such as American Journal of Political Science, Political Behavior, Political Studies, among others.
Åsa von Schoultz is Professor of Political Science and holds the Swedish Chair in Political Science at the University of Helsinki since 2017. Her research revolves around political behavior and public opinion. She is particularly interested in electoral competition within parties, and of citizens’ and elites’ perceptions of democratic processes. Other fields of interest are voting behavior, political participation and political behavior of minorities and of mobile citizens. von Schoultz has extensive experience of survey research among citizens and political elites. She serves as director of the Finnish National Election Study (FNES) (2021-2025), and as chair of the newly established Consortium for National Election Studies (CNES). Von Schoultz’ work is published in journals such as West European Politics, European Journal of Political Research, Party Politics, and Electoral Studies, among others.