Sciences Po Political Behavior Seminar

Upcoming seminars

27 March 2026

Hanna Folsz, Stanford University

Economic Retaliation and the Decline of Opposition Quality

Why do opposition parties struggle to challenge aspiring autocrats in elections? I argue that elite economic coercion — the credible threat of economic retaliation against opposition-aligned elites — plays a central, overlooked role. Authoritarian ruling parties leverage control over state institutions and resources to punish opposition candidates and their families through firings, blacklisting, tax audits, and denials of state contracts. This deters political entry, erodes opposition candidate quality, and diminishes opposition parties’ electoral appeal. Focusing on Hungary’s autocratization episode, I leverage three original data sources for evidence. Using newly assembled panel data on the near-universe of firms linked to candidates, I document widespread economic retaliation upon opposition political entry. A survey experiment with opposition elites reveals that such retaliation reduces political ambition. New data on candidate backgrounds indicate a decline in opposition quality, in large part driven by the deterrence of individuals in high-skilled, state-dependent occupations. The findings highlight the key role of autocrats’ coercive economic retaliation in preventing successful opposition challenge during democratic decline.

27 April 2026

Petra Schleiter (University of Oxford)

How to break populist parties’ appeal? An experimental evaluation of communication counter-strategies

Right-wing populist parties have become a major challenge to liberal democracies worldwide. How can mainstream parties effectively counter their appeal? While prior research has focused on the drivers of populist support, much less is known about how to counter right-wing populist rhetoric. We test four communication counter-strategies that target core elements of right-wing populist appeals: (i) undermining populists’ claims to democratic credibility, (ii) promoting inclusive in-group identity to counter exclusionary narratives, (iii) highlighting their performance legitimacy, and (iv) emphasizing the pro- cedural legitimacy of mainstream parties. Drawing on real-world party communications from social media, manifestos, and press releases, we created 170 experimental treatments (posters and social media posts varying in format and complexity) to simulate how voters encounter political messages in everyday life. In a large-scale survey experiment with over 24,000 respondents in Germany, messages undermining right-wing populists’ democratic credibility prove most effective, particularly among citizens with high initial support for such parties