University of Amsterdam

The University of Amsterdam (UvA) is a member of the League of European Research Universities (LERU), and as such it is one of Europe’s leading academic institutions. It is over 350 years old, and the social science faculty is the largest in the Netherlands. The scientific study of democracy has been one of its core concerns since its foundation.

Two research institutes at the UvA are participating in this study: the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR) and the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies (IMES). Scholars from both institutes figure prominently in both national and international academic communities: they attract a high share of funding from the Dutch National Science Foundation (NWO). The faculty also employs a group of administrative research officers who are experienced in coordinating and managing multi-disciplinary international research projects.

Role within the project

Two faculty members at the UvA, Prof. Wouter van der Brug and Prof. Meindert Fennema are involved in the SOM project. Responsible for scientific monitoring, Prof. Dr. Wouter van der Brug plays a key role in the whole project. He is heading the work packages on the media analysis and the comparative analysis. Prof. Meindert Fennema collaborates with Wouter Van der Brug in the work package on the comparative analysis.

Involved members

Wouter van der Brug is professor and Chair of Political Science at the Department of Political Science at the UvA. In the academic year 2006-2007 he was a Research Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies (NIAS), which is an institute of the Royal Dutch Academy of Arts and Sciences KNAW. He received prizes for the best master’s thesis (in 1993) and best doctoral thesis (in 1998) in political science in the Netherlands. His research interests focus on comparative research in collective political behaviour. He has published in numerous international peer reviewed journals. His most recent book, The Economy and the Vote, was recently published by Cambridge University Press. Prof Wouter Van der Brug was one of the principal investigators of the 1999, 2004 and the 2009 European Election Studies. His co-edited volume European Elections and Domestic Politics was recently published by the University of Notre Dame Press.

Meindert Fennema is professor in the Department of Political Science. His fields of interest are racism, ethnic mobilization, political theory and political violence. He is preparing a book entitled Making Multicultural Democracy. This study focuses on the ethnic communities in Amsterdam to explain the differences in voting turnout, political trust and interest in local politics.

Laura Sudulich is a postdoctoral researcher. Her research activity has focused on new media and political parties, electoral campaigns and their transformation. Laura holds a PhD in Political Science from Trinity College Dublin. She worked for the EU profiler 2009 (Irish team), and is interested in the design and implementation of voters and candidates' surveys.

Joost Berkhout is a postdoctoral researcher.

The team in Amsterdam are teaching an MA module on support and opposition to migration. Participants write their MA thesis on a topics related to the SOM project.