Ruth Dassonneville
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rdassonneville.bsky.social
Ruth Dassonneville
@rdassonneville.bsky.social

Prof at KU Leuven
CRC in Electoral Democracy at Université de Montréal
https://ruthdassonneville.netlify.app/

Political science 67%
Economics 10%
🚨📄 New paper (conditional accepted at @thejop.bsky.social):

We test whether social desirability bias actually distorts answers in online surveys.

Short version:
It mostly doesn’t.

w. @timallinger.bsky.social @kristianvsf.bsky.social @morganlcj.bsky.social

URL: osf.io/preprints/os...

Reposted by Ruth Dassonneville

Social scientists keep explaining why consistent time series are indispensable for understanding social change.

And now Gallup ends the longest-running pres. approval series.

Striking – esp. from the institution that helped institutionalize representative sampling in modern public opinion research
Gallup's presidential approval ratings poll is ending after eight decades
Gallup said it will remain committed to polling on issues that shape everyday lives.
www.axios.com

Gefeliciteerd Tom!
I have a new paper. We look at ~all stats articles in political science post-2010 & show that 94% have abstracts that claim to reject a null. Only 2% present only null results. This is hard to explain unless the research process has a filter that only lets rejections through.

Here's hoping the students think so too! :)

Thanks Cas!

Kicking off the semester with the first lecture in my brand new Public Opinion and Voting Behaviour MA course @kuleuvenuniversity.bsky.social today!

Really *excited* about this course, in which we'll be covering a lot of ground!

Course syllabus 👉 www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/vs9id...

Reposted by Ruth Dassonneville

I feel truly honoured to confer the degree of Doctor Honoris Causa on behalf of Ghent University to Richard Katz. We celebrate him on 20 March for his contribution to political science, and to the study of political parties in particular.
@gasparugent.bsky.social
📣 Call for Nominations: Jack Walker Outstanding Article Award
⏳ Deadline: February 27
📧 Email nominations to:
@jmcrosson.bsky.social @rdassonneville.bsky.social @garlicksauce.bsky.social @shamiragelbman.bsky.social @luciamotoliniac.bsky.social

Reposted by Mikael Persson

‼️ New paper out in @polbehavior.bsky.social !

We ask whether the politically active (in terms of electoral or other forms of participation) are better represented? See Jesper's detailed 🧵 below for more info on the paper! 👇
🧵I am happy to announce a new article in Political Behavior @polbehavior.bsky.social, “Are the Politically Active Better Represented?”, co-authored with @jenny-oser.bsky.social, @rdassonneville.bsky.social, @professormpersson.bsky.social, and Anders Sundell.
link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Are the Politically Active Better Represented? - Political Behavior
Political participation is considered an important path for people to influence politics. However, whether those who participate actually see more of their preferred policies implemented remains an op...
link.springer.com

Had an amazing trip to Tokyo! Presented at seminars on European politics organized by the National Diet Library and gave a talk at Waseda. It turned out to be a fantastic time to visit Tokyo, in the middle of an election campaign!

Thanks much to the NDL staff and Airo Hino for the warm welcome!

Mijn 1ste column in @sampolmaandblad.bsky.social is uit! Ik schrijf een wisselcolumn met de geweldige @lcjacobs89.bsky.social!

Ik heb het over de uitdagingen waar groene partijen voor staan. Ze hebben het moeilijk om bezorgdheid voor het klimaat om te zetten in stemmen. Hoe dat komt lees je hier👇
New and open access, in @psrm.bsky.social: What happens when we make politicians draw distributions? Nic Dias, @jacklucas.bsky.social and I explore whether the large errors politicians make about public opinion are artificially inflated by how researchers ask them to estimate it /1
cup.org/4kltoyE
I use @electionstudies.bsky.social data from 1972 to model how characters in The Simpsons would have voted in presidential elections

It turns out to be very revealing about how the demographic coalitions of the Democratic and Republican parties have completely rearranged themselves...
How The Simpsons Explain America's Political Realignment
How the Democrats lost Homer Simpson but gained Mr Burns
jamesbreckwoldt.substack.com

Last Friday, @jochemvanagt.bsky.social brilliantly defended his PhD dissertation on affective polarization in multiparty systems.

Check out Jochem's thread for a summary of his main findings and access to the full (fantastic!) dissertation 👇
PhD successfully defended!

"Beyond the Two-Party Divide" examines how affective polarization works in Europe, and when it matters for democracy.

Short answer: Europe's multiparty systems have particularly good "safeguards" to prevent polarization from spiraling out of control like in the U.S.

Reposted by Ruth Dassonneville

PhD successfully defended!

"Beyond the Two-Party Divide" examines how affective polarization works in Europe, and when it matters for democracy.

Short answer: Europe's multiparty systems have particularly good "safeguards" to prevent polarization from spiraling out of control like in the U.S.

Reposted by Stefan Müller

Super excited to be participating in this Una Europa project on "Democracy and AI" ! And looking forward to co-leading the Leuven team with @bzar.bsky.social !
Delighted that our project “Democracy and AI” has been selected for Una Europa Seed Funding.

Our project establishes a network of 25 researchers from six Una Europa institutions: University of Zurich, KU Leuven, University of Edinburgh, FU Berlin, Leiden, UCD.

➡️ www.una-europa.eu/stories/10-n...
10 new projects receive Una Europa Seed Funding to shape Europe’s future | Una Europa
Eleven European research universities have come together to create a unique alliance – Una Europa. Our universities have been educating Europe for almost 1,000 years. Together, we teach more than 400,...
www.una-europa.eu
Delighted that our project “Democracy and AI” has been selected for Una Europa Seed Funding.

Our project establishes a network of 25 researchers from six Una Europa institutions: University of Zurich, KU Leuven, University of Edinburgh, FU Berlin, Leiden, UCD.

➡️ www.una-europa.eu/stories/10-n...
10 new projects receive Una Europa Seed Funding to shape Europe’s future | Una Europa
Eleven European research universities have come together to create a unique alliance – Una Europa. Our universities have been educating Europe for almost 1,000 years. Together, we teach more than 400,...
www.una-europa.eu
Very happy that our review article (with the @annualreviews.bsky.social) on „Austerity and Populism“ is now available as preprint: www.annualreviews.org/content/jour... - with @sattlersthomas.bsky.social
Austerity and Populism
A large literature explains the rise of populist parties with the economic insecurities stemming from globalization and technological change. But despite the long-standing focus of the comparative and...
www.annualreviews.org
🛐 How is #Secularisation changing the way we vote?

@melff.bsky.social @rdassonneville.bsky.social & Kamil Marcinkiewicz examine patterns in Western Europe to find how the relationship between religion and vote choice have changed over time. 🗳️
After secularisation? A comparative analysis of religious cleavages in Western Europe | European Journal of Political Research | Cambridge Core
After secularisation? A comparative analysis of religious cleavages in Western Europe
buff.ly

‼️ The Consortium of National Election Studies (@nesconsortium.bsky.social) is such a valuable and important initiative!

Follow their account to stay updated on the excellent work CNES is doing in terms of information sharing about election studies, data harmonization, and the CNES knowledge bank!!
What a great way to kick off 2026 for our Consortium 🛫 Yesterday's Scientific Advisory Board meeting gave us exciting new ideas on how to develop our community 💡Thanks to the Board: Henrik Ekengren Oscarsson @sarahobolt.bsky.social @rdassonneville.bsky.social Eva Anduiza Dave Howell and Orit Kedar 👏

Reposted by Ruth Dassonneville

What a great way to kick off 2026 for our Consortium 🛫 Yesterday's Scientific Advisory Board meeting gave us exciting new ideas on how to develop our community 💡Thanks to the Board: Henrik Ekengren Oscarsson @sarahobolt.bsky.social @rdassonneville.bsky.social Eva Anduiza Dave Howell and Orit Kedar 👏

Reposted by Ruth Dassonneville

Happy to share this new paper @jeppjournal.bsky.social with my great colleagues @dweisstanner.bsky.social & Carsten Jensen.

In "Winning with equality", we show "how left-wing parties attract votes but [in doing so] amplify electoral cleavages"

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Key points in 📈👇
Portugal is having a presidential election tomorrow (Sunday).

It is a fairly unusual one, which is representative of how much the political landscape has changed in the country.

Here is some quick context about it, in case that is of interest:

1/9

Reposted by Ruth Dassonneville

🚨New publication on cleavages in party competition in Central and Eastern Europe 🚨

CEE party systems are famously volatile, but does that mean that they are unstructured?
❓I ask whether competition has become programmatically organized around enduring cleavages

🔗 doi.org/10.1177/1354...

Thread 👇

This paper was a *long* time in the making. We started working on the project in 2020 (!), had a first draft in 2021, and got distracted by other projects way too often. So very happy the paper came together and found a home at the EJPR!

3️⃣ Furthermore, Catholics and Protestants, who were quite similar in their voting behaviour at the beginning of the time frame of our analysis, diverge from one another over time, with the Protestants becoming more conservative.

2️⃣ We also find that the voting behaviour of members from non-Christian religious groups is more similar to that of non-religious voters than it is to that of Christian voters.

Some key findings:
1️⃣ The results indicate that voting differences between religious Christian and non-religious citizens in Western Europe are not declining, they even increase!