One of the most pressing challenges for contemporary democracies is partisan hostility toward opposing parties and their supporters. My research investigates (1) how this hostility shapes citizens’ political and democratic behavior and (2) what interventions can help reduce it. In my dissertation, I introduced new approaches to measuring partisan hostility, examined its consequences for voting behavior and democratic commitments, and tested whether different pro-democracy messages can lower hostility and its negative impacts.

In a parallel line of work, as part of the ERC-funded project DEMED (Democracy under Threat: How Education can Save it), we explored how civic education can counteract the anti-democratic effects of polarization. Drawing on original survey data from 33 countries and over 41,000 participants, we found that online civic education interventions can meaningfully strengthen democratic commitments in polarized or authoritarian contexts.

My current research at Aarhus University extends this agenda by designing and testing pro-democracy advertisements to assess whether they can effectively encourage citizens to uphold democratic norms.