I investigate the conditions under which modern democracies thrive or decline, studying how AI systems and digital platforms reshape political communication and citizen behaviour, what drives far-right support and democratic norm erosion, and how place, education, and gender structure political conflict and representation. My work draws on large-scale experiments, surveys and electoral data, digital trace data, and computational methods. My work has appeared in PNAS, Perspectives on Politics, Political Communication, European Journal of Political Research, and Political Behavior, among others.
I was awarded the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize 2026 (€200,000), the most prestigious recognition for early-career researchers in Germany, by the German Research Foundation (DFG). I lead the Emmy Noether Research Group OPENMIND (€1.2M, DFG), using AI and digital behavioural data to investigate the social and institutional conditions that sustain democratic resilience in diverse societies.
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Democracy, Digital Dynamics & AI
Digital platforms and AI systems are transforming the conditions for democratic engagement. I study how chatbot interactions shape political socialisation, how AI-mediated citizen-representative communication alters political efficacy, how AI-based interventions can strengthen citizens’ democratic resilience, and how platform affordances structure partisan exchange, the spread of misinformation, and collective democratic action in digital spaces.
Transformation of Democracy & the Far Right
What drives far-right support, and when do citizens fail to punish democratic norm violations? I study how latent nativist orientations and political disaffection translate into radical-right votes under structural and political conditions that create opportunity — and the conditions under which citizens’ commitment to democratic norms gives way to partisan calculation.
Identity, Cleavages & Representation
How do place, education, and gender structure political conflict, democratic inclusion, and representation — and what determines citizens’ openness to cultural diversity? I study place-based identity as a cross-cutting voting heuristic rooted in community attachment, how field of education shapes political attitudes, when exposure to female authority reduces far-right susceptibility, and the social and institutional conditions that generate or undermine openness toward cultural diversity.
forthc.
Education and Political Attitudes: The Power and Limits of Field Theory.
Perspectives on Politics.
forthc.
Who Won the Feed? TikTok Campaigning and the Electoral Success of AfD and The Left in Germany’s 2025 Federal Election.
Electoral Studies.
2026
Shelter from the Storm: External Threat, Social Identity, and Support for the EU.
European Union Politics, OnlineFirst. [Data]
2025
The Reliability of Replications: A Study in Computational Reproductions.
Royal Society Open Science, 12:3. [Data]
2024
Right-Wing Authoritarian Attitudes, Fast-Paced Decision-Making, and the Spread of Misinformation about COVID-19 Vaccines.
Political Communication, 41(4), 608–626. [Data]
2023
Local Candidates, Place-Based Identities, and Electoral Success.
Political Behavior, 45(2), 679–698. [Data]
2023
COVID-19 Related Anxieties Do Not Decrease Support for Liberal Democracy.
European Journal of Political Research, 62(2), 660–673. [Data]
2022
Observing Many Researchers Using the Same Data and Hypothesis Reveals a Hidden Universe of Uncertainty.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 119(44). [Data]
2022
Electoral Participation, Political Disaffection, and the Rise of the Populist Radical Right.
Party Politics, 28(3), 441–453. [Data]
2022
Political Potentials, Deep-Seated Nativism, and the Success of the German AfD.
Frontiers in Political Science. [Data]
2020
Support for Radical Parties in Western Europe: The Role of Long- and Short-Term Dynamics.
Electoral Studies, 65. [Data]
2019
The Effect of European Parliament Elections on Political Socialisation.
Journal of European Public Policy, 26(7), 1094–1111. [Data]
2018
Do European Parliament Elections Foster Challenger Parties’ Success on the National Level?
European Union Politics, 19(3), 408–426. [Data]
forthc.
Die AfD nach der Bundestagswahl 2025: Etablierte Kraft im Osten, zweitstärkste Macht im Bund.
In U. Jun & O. Niedermayer (Eds.): Die Parteien nach der Bundestagswahl 2025. Springer VS.
2026
Diverse Candidates, Diverse Positions? Party Line Conformity in Campaign Positions by Female and Immigrant Origin Candidates.
In J. Fernandes & J. Martinez (Eds.): Democracy at the Crossroads. Routledge.
2022
Representation and Accountability.
In V. Anghel & E. Jones (Eds.): Development in European Politics 3. Palgrave Macmillan.
2021
Outcomes — Government Responsiveness.
In A. Bojar et al. (Eds.): Contentious Episodes in the Age of Austerity. Cambridge University Press.
2020
The Return of the Economy? Issue Contention in the Protest Arena.
In H. Kriesi et al. (Eds.): Contention in Times of Crisis. Cambridge University Press.
2019
The Restructuring of British and German Party Politics in Times of Crisis.
In S. Hutter & H. Kriesi (Eds.): European Party Politics in Times of Crisis. Cambridge University Press.
2026
Responsive or Compliant? Auditing LLM Sycophancy and Legal Safeguards in Multi-Turn Dialogues with Young Voters.
2026
AI at the Citizen-Representative Interface: Political Efficacy and Democratic Responsiveness.
2026
The Polarising Impact of Anti-Democratic Foreign Influence on Citizens’ Commitment to Democracy.
2026
Becoming Architects of Political Change: The Organizing Capacity of Democratic Micro-Practices in the Digital Age.
2026
Identity vs. Substance: How Partisan Cues Condition Exchange in Digital Participatory Platforms.
2026
Breaking the Backlash: How Early Exposure to Female Authority Reduces Men’s Far-Right Support.
2026
Daughters and Political Attitudes: Parental Socialization in Reverse.
2026
Democratic Accountability under Out-Party Threat: Revealed Commitment and Gerrymandering.
2026
Compensatory Conformity in Candidate Campaigns: Gender, Immigrant Origin, and Status Asymmetries in Party-Centered Electoral Competition.
2026
The Positive Roots of Localism: How Place-Based Identity Drives the Preference for Hometown Candidates.
© 2026 Julia Schulte-Cloos