Projects
I list below my main current research projects.
The acceptability of government coalitions
(with Damien Bol and Carolina Plescia)
The objective of the study is to determine which kinds of coalitions are and are not acceptable to what groups of citizens. The survey experiment is conducted among a sample of 5,000 German citizens. Each respondent will assess the degree of acceptability of five randomly produced scenarios, each scenario indicating the distribution of seats among the parties in parliament, which parties form a coalition (and the distribution of cabinet seats among these parties) and which party the Chancellor is from.
Losers’ consent
(with Damien Bol and Carolina Plescia)
The objective of the study is to examine the factors that facilitate losers’ consent, that is, people’s willingness to accept electoral defeat. We focus on two types of factors. We first ascertain what kinds of citizens are most and least willing to accept defeat. We then identify the kinds of rules and outcomes that foster/hinder losers’ consent. On the basis of a thorough review of the theoretical and empirical literature, we propose an original battery of questions to tap the various dimensions of losers’ consent. We will validate the proposed measure in a survey conducted at the time of the 2026 U.S. Congressional election.
What is a good democratic outcome?
(with Semra Sevi)
The objective of the study is to describe the contours of what people deem to be a ‘good’ democratic outcome. Through an original conjoint experiment conducted at the time of the Canadian 2025 election, we ascertain the extent to which people are concerned with how they can express their views and the quality of representation and accountability.
Do people support divided government?
(with Semra Sevi)
One conception of democracy is that it is a system in which power is diluted as much as possible among many different actors. According to this view, one should want electoral outcomes that provide divided rather than unified government. We examine support for unified and divided government through surveys conducted at the time of the 2024 U.S. presidential and 2025 Canadian legislative election. We determine the extent to which citizens do or do not support dived government, over and above their partisan preferences.
