Nils Steiner

@nilssteiner.bsky.social

Political Scientist at JGU Mainz, Germany.

Research on public opinion, elections, parties, and democracy (more at: https://www.nilssteiner.com/).

Co-Chair of the AK Wahlen (@dvpw.bsky.social).

Associate editor at @pvs-journal.bsky.social.

@nvondarza.bsky.socialReposted by @nilssteiner.bsky.social

Another 'wow the Eurozone crisis is a long time ago'-moment - Greek (seasonally adjusted) youth unemployment has now fallen below EU average, something that would have seemed absurd 10 years ago:

Graph of seasonally adjusted youth unemployment, with Greece below EU average.
@frederikthieme.bsky.socialReposted by @nilssteiner.bsky.social

Why do green parties struggle electorally despite widespread support for climate action? My new (first šŸ˜±) paper explores why green parties remain uniquely challenged in economic crisis & that the mechanism is not only about sociotropic concerns, but also votersā€™ pocketbooks šŸ§µ
doi.org/10.1017/S147...

@nilssteiner.bsky.social

Another fine contribution to the AK Wahlen special issue on the 2025 German election: Schuster et al. examine the effects of Merzā€™s pre-election firewall breach. Neat features: The Munich and Salzburg teams joined forces after submitting similar proposals and preregistered their analyses. šŸ‘‡

@nilssteiner.bsky.social

Two neat findings in Christopher Claassenā€™s new POQ paper:

1ļøāƒ£ Democratic support predicts stronger resistance to antidemocratic candidates, even under partisan cross-pressure.

2ļøāƒ£ The Claassen et al. liberal democracy scale is the most consistent moderator.

doi.org/10.1093/poq/...

@tabouchadi.bsky.socialReposted by @nilssteiner.bsky.social

For my new research unit Politics of Democracy at the Berlin Social Science Center @wzb.bsky.social, we have 3 open research positions.

2 postdocs: 4 + 2 years (100%)
1 doc: 2 years (75%)

Starting date: 1 March 2027 (negotiable)
Application deadline: 1 November

Job adjob ad
@nilssteiner.bsky.social

In another great contribution to the AK Wahlen special issue on the 2025 German election, @denis-cohen.bsky.social and colleagues use Bayesian finite mixture models to study mainstream-to-challenger defection. Their findings highlight the underappreciated role of performance evaluations. šŸ‘‡

@rfrbrghs.bsky.socialReposted by @nilssteiner.bsky.social

The Swiss Peopleā€™s Party SVP is one of the oldest and electorally strongest radical-right parties in the world. But: electoral popularity ā‰  policy popularity Voters keep supporting the SVP in elections, but only 2 out of 12 popular initiatives launched by the SVP have passed Data: Swissvotes

@wepsocial.bsky.socialReposted by @nilssteiner.bsky.social

ā³ Why are voters out of step with parties on immigration and redistribution?

Hironao Yoda and Serika Atsumi study 16 Western European countries: newer cohorts link the two issues as parties do ā€” older ones don't, so the gap should narrow with generational turnover.

šŸ”— doi.org/10.1080/0140...

Description of the article "Time dilation: the temporal structure of eliteā€“voter incongruence on redistribution and immigration" by Hironao Yoda and Serika Atsumi, published online first in West European Politics. Figure 1. Two scatter plots on redistribution (x-axis) and immigration (y-axis) for 14 Western European countries. Panel (a) shows party positions from the Chapel Hill Expert Survey, which line up along a clear diagonal; panel (b) shows voter positions from the European Social Survey, which spread across all four quadrants with essentially no relationship between the two issues. Figure 2. Dot-and-interval plot of how strongly immigration attitudes relate to redistribution attitudes in each of seven cohorts, from the interwar generation to the newest "crisis" generation. For cohorts up to the 90s generation the link is small and often indistinguishable from zero; it turns clearly positive for the 00s generation and is strongest for the crisis generation.
@kunkakom.bsky.socialReposted by @nilssteiner.bsky.social

We are hiring at LMU Munich: two PhD positions and one postdoc on democracy, political psychology and computational social science. Start: January 2027 or as soon as possible. We review applications on a rolling basis until October 20. Details below. Reposts very welcome! 1/7

@indubioproreto.bsky.socialReposted by @nilssteiner.bsky.social

Interesting new paper in @wepsocial.bsky.social by Yoda&Atsumi showing that "the positive association between pro-redistribution and pro-immigration attitudes is weaker among earlier cohorts."

In other words: the number of left-authoritarian voters decreases across generations.

@juliusk.bsky.socialReposted by @nilssteiner.bsky.social

Ƅhnliche Muster auch sich in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Ein hƶherer AfD-Stimmenanteil korreliert stark mit LƤndlichkeit und peripherer Lage. In Gemeinden mit geringerem Bevƶlkerungsverlust, hƶherer BeschƤftigungsquote Ƅlterer und hƶherem Einkommensteueraufkommen pro Kopf ist die AfD eher schwƤcher.

@nilssteiner.bsky.social

Die AfD hat bei den Landtagswahlen 2026 ihre Ergebnisse gegenĆ¼ber dem jeweiligen Landesergebnis bei der Bundestagswahl 2025 gar nicht mal so stark steigern kƶnnen (wie man vielleicht denken kƶnnte, wenn man immer nur den Vergleich zur vorherigen Landtagswahl sieht).

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