The Team
The research group on Democracy, Elections and Citizenship (DEC) is part of the Department of Political Science of the Autonomous University of Barcelona.The main goal of the group is the analysis of citizens’ political involvement. For this purpose we develop externally funded projects. Our approach is empirical (we collect and analyze data) and mainly, but not only, quantitative.
The group shares a relative short but very intense experience of team work, starting in 2005. In 2009 we have been officially recognized as emergent research group by the Catalan government.
Eva Anduiza
Eva Anduiza - Professor of Political Science and Icrea Academia at the UAB. Her research interests focus around political engagement in advanced democracies including the causes and consequences of electoral turnout, political protest, digital media and political attitudes. She is also interested in survey and experimental methodology. Recently her research has focused on the attitudinal consequences of the economic crisis, with a special focus on understanding the triggers and implications of populist attitudes. Current she is focusing on change in attitudes towards gender equality.
Daniel Balinhas
Daniel Balinhas - PhD Candidate in the Department of Political Science at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a Master’s degree in Psychosocial Intervention. His main research interests are focused on the processes and actors that intervene in the formation of the public agenda, identity construction processes as well as discourse analysis, political antagonisms and the ideological struggle about the meanings of key political words and concepts.
Berta Barbet
Berta Barbet- Postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Political Science at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He completed a Ph.D in Political Science and International Relations at the University of Leicester in 2016. Her reserach deals with the determinants of citizens’ behaviours and attitudes with an especial focus on how context shapes them
Agustí Bosch
Agustí Bosch - He is senior lecturer in Political Science at the UAB and academic director of the UIMP. He holds a PhD in Politics, an MA in Political Behaviour (Essex) and a BA in Economics. His main research interests are political behaviour and the electoral system, both at Catalan and comparative levels.
Sofia Breitenstein
Sofia Breitenstein - Ph.D Candidate in the Department of Political Science at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). She holds a bachelor’s degree in Sociology (Universitat de Barcelona, 2012) and a master’s degree in Political Sciences (Universitat Autonoma, 2014). Her research deals with attitudes towards corruption and their effect on electoral behavior.
Carolina Galais
Carolina Galais - She obtained her Ph.D. in political science from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra and held postdoctoral fellowships at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Université de Montréal (UdeM, 2012-2015) and Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (2015-2018). Her research interests revolve around two major research strands: public opinion (interest in politics, civic duty, populism, emotions, political socialization, digital media) and local participation. She has published more than 20 peer-reviewed articles in journals such as West European Politics, the European Journal of Political Research, Electoral Studies and Research & Politics.
Enrique Hernández
Enrique Hernández- Postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Political Science at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He completed a Ph.D in Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute in 2016. His research interests include electoral behavior, political attitudes, public opinion and political participation.
Dani Marinova
Dani Marinova- Dani joined the Department of Political Science and Public Law at the Autonomous University of Barcelona in 2015. Her research is currently funded by a grant from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Education (Juan de la Cierva – Incorporación, 2015-2017). Previously, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Political Economy Cluster at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. She completed a PhD in Political Science at Indiana University in 2012
Sabina Monza
Sabina Monza- Ph.D in Politics, Policies and International Relations (UAB), also holds a master’s degree in Research in Communications and Journalism (UAB). Her research deals with public opinion and political communication, and focuses in particular on opinion formation and attitudes mediated by the mass media.
Juan Pérez-Rajó
Juan Pérez-Rajó - Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Political Science at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). He holds a master’s degree in Political Science (UAB) and a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and Public Administration (Universidade de Santiago de Compostela). His research interests include populism, populist attitudes and voting behavior.
Guillem Rico
Guillem Rico- ‘Ramón y Cajal’ fellowship. His research interests include voting behavior, public opinion, and political leadership. His work has been published in journals such as Political Psychology, Electoral Studies, and South European Society & Politics. He is also author of a book on the perception and electoral influence of party leaders in Spain (Líderes políticos, opinión pública y comportamiento electoral en España. Madrid: CIS, 2009), and co-editor of a volume on the 2011 general elections in Spain (Elecciones generales 2011. Madrid: CIS, 2014).
Ángel Luis Torres
Ángel Luis Torres - Ph.D candidate at the Department of Political Science at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Geography (Universidad de Castilla-la Mancha) and a Master’s degree in International Politics (Universidad Complutense de Madrid). His research interests are support for European/Eurasian integration, identities and Eastern European politics.
Members affiliated to other institutions
Luca Bernardi
Luca Bernardi- Juan de la Cierva Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Political Science at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He previously was a researcher in the ERC-funded ResponsiveGov Project at the School of History, Politics and International Relations at the University of Leicester, where he obtained his PhD in 2016. He holds an MA (Florence) and and a BA (Cagliari) in Political Science. His areas of research include electoral incentives and representation, public opinion and policy change, mental health and political attitudes and behaviour, and intra-party democracy. His research appears in the British Journal of Political Science, Environmental Politics, and Acta Politica.
Jordi Garcia Muniesa
Jordi Garcia Muniesa - PhD candidate in political science from UAB. He holds an MSc degree in Political Sociology from the London School of Economics and a BA in Sociology from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. His research is focused on public opinion, specifically on citizens’ attitudes towards redistribution.
María José Hierro
María José Hierro- Juan de la Cierva Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Political Science at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. PhD in Political Science (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, UAM) and M.A. in Social Sciences (Juan March Institute). Her research interests are related to national identity, nationalism, socialization, political attitudes and political behavior.
Robert Liñeira
Robert Liñeira- He is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Autonomous University of Madrid. He previously was a Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh (2014-2018) and at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, where he obtained his PhD in political science in 2012. His research interests deal broadly with public opinion, political behavior, and political attitudes.
Roberto Pannico
Roberto Pannico- PhD in Political Science from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and currently Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Social Sciences Institute of the University of Lisbon. He earned his Bachelor Degree in International Relations from the University of Naples “L’Orientale”, and his Master Degree in International Science (curriculum Political Science) from the University of Siena (Italy). His research interests include Euroscepticism, party cues, EU politicization, information processing, experiments and research methods.
Raul Tormos
Raul Tormos- PhD in Political Science from the UAB, he is senior survey researcher at the Center for Opinion Studies (CEO), Generalitat de Catalunya. He teaches at the UB and EAPC. His research interests include the study of values, attitudes, political behavior, age-period-cohort effects, multilevel models, and survey methods.
Former members
Camilo Cristancho
Camilo Cristancho - He is a post-doctoral researcher in political science. His research deals with protest politics through the lens of attitudinal and contextual determinants of political behavior, as well as the potential outcomes of contentious politics. His approach to the field has relied on survey and experimental research and computational social science as a way to grasp the complexity of political conflict.
Sheila González
Sheila González- PhD in Public Policy and Social Transformation at the UAB. Currently she is researcher and adjunct professor in the Department of Political Sciences (UAB). Her research interests include public policy analysis and political participation.
Marc Guinjoan
Marc Guinjoan-He is Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Political Science and Public Law at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He is doctor in Political Sciences at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (October 2012). His research interests are focused on political behaviour, elections and electoral systems, as well as on processes of decentralization, identities, nationalism and secession. He has published his work in reviews such as Public Opinion Quarterly, Publius, Gender & Politics or Nations and Nationalism.
Jordi Muñoz
Jordi Muñoz- He is Ramón y Cajal research fellow at the University of Barcelona since July, 2014. Previously, he was postdoctoral researcher (Juan de la Cierva) at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, and Phd student at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. His broad research interests are related to political attitudes an behavior.
Roser Rifà
Roser Rifà-PhD in Political Science from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (2017). She holds a master’s degree in Political Science Research (Universitat Pompeu Fabra, 2011). She is currently working in the Local Public Administration.