Research & Impact

Current Research Agenda:

    1. Improve accessibility & appropriate use of mainly multilevel & structural equation models.
    2. Advance research on populist polarization, namely the measurement & mitigation of partisan motivated democracy eroding policy preferences.
    3. Understand motivations underlying secessionist attitudes.

Impact Statement:

    1. In the past decade I have led one of the largest political science methods education centers that, during this time, was responsible for the training of around 10,000 participants. In 2021 I (co-)founded MethodsNET to advance pluralistic social science methods. I lead the development of the MethodsNET YouTube Channel.
    2. I am committed to producing publicly available data which lead to my participation in the European Election Study (mainly 2009), Comparative Study of Election Systems (contributing Hungary 2018 & Tunisia 2019), European Social Survey Wave 10 Democracy & COVID Questionnaire Design Teams. I also extended the Global Populism Database w/ US Governors data & led the revival of the Hungarian Twin Registry and its extension into a population based research resource.
    3. Through my efforts in Team Populism, I helped improve public understanding of populism, spawning our YouTube channel, the Leader Profile Series (with online training program), and The Guardian’s 84 article New Populism series. Based on my research, I proposed and designed the most visited piece in the series: “How Populist Are You?” (with over 1.5 million views).