The Comparative Politics Seminar Series in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute is a venue for the presentation of work in progress by scholars from across the subfield of comparative politics.
It usually takes place on Thursdays from 17:00 to 18:30 at Seminar Room 2, in Badia Fiesolana (Fiesole). See below or sync the calendar for the exact location for each meeting. See previous events.
The series is organized by Elias Dinas, Simon Hix, Filip Kostelka, Kevin Munger and Tasha Fairfield with support by Fabian Pawelczyk and Raluca Toma.
Thursday 22 October 2026 | Seminar Room 2
Surviving Exile through Protest
Why do political exiles persist in activism despite uncertain prospects for success, limited expressive benefits, and the profound costs of forced displacement? I argue that exile activism is best understood through the psychology of survival. Exile constitutes a traumatic rupture that threatens activists’ core identities and continued participation enables the preservation of those identities through two processes: enactment, in which exiles inhabit identities by performing familiar practices, and social recognition, in which relevant audiences affirm that performance. I develop this argument through an ethnographically informed study of Egyptian political exile after the 2013 coup. The presentation will focus on the book’s theory and an empirical chapter examining exile protests. Interviews demonstrate that activists continue protesting in exile primarily to sustain their identities as opposition. Analysis of an original dataset of nearly four hundred exile protests across the book’s four main cases shows observable characteristics of protest (location, topic, and partisanship) primarily reflect efforts to seek recognition from specific audiences within the broader Egyptian opposition.
Thursday 29 October 2026 | Sala del Capitolo
Title TBD
Abstract TBD
Thursday 12 November 2026 | Seminar Room 2
Title TBD
Abstract TBD
Thursday 19 November 2026 | Seminar Room 2
Green Collars at the Voting Booth: Material Interest and Environmental Voting
We study how occupation-related material interest affects environmental voting. Specifically, material interest hinges on the greenness vs. brownness of individual occupational profiles. That is, on the extent to which individuals are expected to benefit vs. lose in a greener economy. We employ individual-level data from 14 western European countries, over 2010-2019. To measure the greenness and brownness of occupational profiles, for each individual we compute predicted greenness and brownness scores based on the predicted probabilities to be employed in each possible occupation. These probabilities are combined with occupation-specific greenness and brownness scores. Individuals characterized by higher predicted brownness are less likely to vote for Green parties and for parties with a more environmentalist agenda, while the opposite holds for individuals characterized by higher predicted greenness. Voting preferences of brown profiles tend to converge towards those of greener profiles in regions that are better placed to gain from the green transition.
Thursday 26 November 2026 | Seminar Room 2
Title TBD
Abstract TBD