In the fifth episode of “Political Science? No Problem et al.” we talk to Professor Noam Gidron about democratic backsliding in Israel. What ideological motivations lie behind the controversial plans to weaken the Israeli justice system? What attitudes explain public support for these plans and democratic backsliding in general? How can Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party and its plans to restructure the justice system be compared with situations in Poland and Hungary?

We also discussed the role of affective polarization in Israeli society and how the ongoing war might influence the attempted erosion of Israel’s democratic institutions in the long term. 

Noam Gidron is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His previous research is especially known for its findings on affective polarization and the link between social status and support for populist parties. 

You can find his website here: https://en.politics.huji.ac.il/people/noam-gidron  and follow him on Twitter here: https://x.com/NoamGidron.  Noams work discussed in the episode can be found here: https://osf.io/preprints/osf/zxukm and here: https://muse.jhu.edu/article/900431 . If you’d like to give us feedback, consider rating the podcast wherever you listen to it or send us a message on Twitter (https://twitter.com/V_Burgi & https://twitter.com/Julius_Ktxt)

In the fourth episode of “Political Science? No Problem et al.” we talk to Professor Sabrina Mayer about the voting behavior of immigrant origin voters in Germany. How can we understand the voting behavior of this heterogeneous voter group and what do we know about their party preferences? Why is there a stronger affinity for the AfD among Russian Germans and to what extent has the party affiliation of Turkish-German voters changed in recent years? Moreover, we discussed whether parties are increasingly trying to appeal to migrant voters, what kind of information environment these voters find themselves in and what the methodological difficulties are in studying their political preferences.  

Sabrina is a full professor of Political Sociology at the University of Bamberg as well as associated member at the DeZIM Institute in Berlin.  Her research focuses on group identities, political attitudes and comparative voting behavior and is best known for findings on the voting behavior of migrant voters. 

You can find her website here: https://sabrinajmayer.de/ and follow her on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/sabrinajmayer?lang=de. Sabrina´s work discussed in the episode can be found here:https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=r8VOcJYAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

If you’d like to give us feedback, consider rating the podcast wherever you listen to it or send us a message on Twitter (https://twitter.com/V_Burgi & https://twitter.com/Julius_Ktxt)

In the third episode of „Political Science? No Problem et al.“, we talk to Dr. Magdalena Breyer about voters‘ reactions to different representation trajectories of women in politics. Does an increase in the proportion of female politicians trigger a conservative backlash? Can stagnating women’s representation mobilize female voters for progressive parties? And what does this tell us about changing gender-related status hierarchies in western societies as a whole? More broadly, we discussed general gender disparities in voting behavior, how older and younger women differ in political preferences and how different parties try to appeal to female voters. 

Magda is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Basel and studies the implications of shifting class and status structures for voting behavior and party competition. You can find her website here: https://www.magdalenabreyer.net/ and follow her on Twitter here:https://twitter.com/magda_breyer. Magda’s paper discussed in the episode can be accessed here:https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00104140231223745

If you’d like to give us feedback, consider rating the podcast wherever you listen to it or send us a message on Twitter (https://twitter.com/V_Burgi & https://twitter.com/Julius_Ktxt)

In the second episode of „Political Science? No Problem et al.!“ we talk to Nils Steiner about the new German party „BSW“, based on his research on the left-authoritarian supply gap.  What is special about this party? What peculiar positions does it take on cultural and economic issues? What might its electorate look like? And does it pose a threat to the rise of the radical right in Germany?

Nils is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Mainz and studies voting behaviour, representation and political attitudes. You can follow him here on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NilsSteiner. If you are interested in Nils‘ research on left-wing authoritarian voting behavior and parties, here are two papers mentioned in the episode: 
https://shorturl.at/BKR27
https://shorturl.at/qxEHO
https://ejpr.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1475-6765.12348

The paper by Sarah Wagner, Constantin Wurthmann and Jan Philipp Thomeczek on the voter potential of the BSW can be found here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11615-023-00481-3

The mentioned analysis by Marc Debus, Christian Stecker and Jochen Müller on BSW party positions: https://twitter.com/DebusMarc/status/1744695079011254585

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In the first episode of „Political Science? – No Problem et al.“ we talk to Kai Arzheimer about the ongoing popularity of the far-right party AfD in Germany. Among other things, we discussed what explains support for the AfD, what the party’s electorate looks like, why the party is proving more successful in eastern Germany and to what extent the ongoing mass protests could have an impact on the party’s fortunes.

Kai Arzheimer is a professor of political science at the University of Mainz and investigates the radical right for decades. He is a leading researcher in his field.
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