Accepting Postgraduate Research Students

PhD projects

1. Institutions and Migration Policies. The project looks at immigration from a political economy perspective. The aim is to study the link between the institutions (e.g. electoral systems) in place in a country and the type of immigration policies it adopts.
2. Populism. What socio-economic mechanisms can drive the rise of populism? Can this be explained by a rational voting model? Under which circumstances do populist parties have incentives to enter the electoral competition?
3. Electoral Systems and Political Parties. This is a general topic that encompasses all questions related to the functioning and effects of electoral systems. Electoral systems are the rules of the electoral game that shape the behaviour of political parties and voters.
4. Causes and effects of Political Participation. This is a general topic that encompasses all questions related to voting behaviour and the decision to vote. An interesting example is the analysis of vote swapping (two voters in different constituencies choose to swap their vote): can this be sustained in equilibrium?
5. Ethnic voting. The project aims at analysing the phenomenon of ethnic voting. Broadly defined, ethnic voting is the extent to which voting decision depend on ethnic considerations. Interesting questions within this project could be: how can we best measure ethnic voting?