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Photo of Jonathan Polk. Photo.
På svenska

Jonathan Polk

Professor

På svenska
Photo of Jonathan Polk. Photo.
Contact details
Organisation
  • Department of Political Science
  • Room number: 422
  • Service point: 31
Webpage

Political Science 

Main research and teaching areas

  • Political parties
  • European politics
  • Representation
  • Comparative politics

Current research and teaching

My teaching and research interests include political parties, the European Union, and comparative politics, particularly connections among these areas. My scholarship focuses on the representational relationship between citizens and parties in European democracies with an emphasis on voter-party congruence across various political topics and over time. Much of my work also addresses intra-party politics, e.g., similarities and differences in policy preferences between party members and party leadership. The estimation of party positions and voter preferences is a central theme in my research. 

I am one of the principal investigators of the Chapel Hill Expert Survey on political party positioning, and was also the co-principal investigator for two rounds of the Swedish Party Membership Survey. Between 2024 and 2030, I am an elected member of the ECPR Executive Committee. Within the Department of Political Science at Lund, I am an elected member of the Department Board, the convenor of the Working Group on Gender Equality, Diversity, and Equal Opportunities, and also serve on the Research Committee and Budget Committee. 

I was recipient of the Faculty of Social Sciences Teaching Award (2016) at the University of Gothenburg. My research has been recognised with the Outstanding Article Award from the American Political Science Association’s Political Organizations and Parties Section (2018) and Honourable Mention for the American Political Science Association’s Data Set Award (2020). 

My teaching includes courses on Comparative Politics, the European Union, and Political Science Methodology. I regularly supervise student research on related topics at the bachelor, master, and doctoral levels.

Research projects

  • Political Party Competition and the Transnational Cleavage in Europe. Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ).
  • Darkness on the horizon? Exploring the response to contestation of trade policy in Europe. Norwegian Research Council. (Guri Rosén, Principal Investigator).
  • Political Party Member Responses to Organizational Change. Swedish Research Council (VR).
  • The Electoral Effects of Ideological Moderation for Mainstream European Political Parties. Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ).

Link to personal page

‪Jonathan Polk‬ - ‪Google Scholar‬

Publications

Displaying of publications. Sorted by year, then title.

Introduction

Before joining the Department of Political Science at Lund University in 2021, I was an Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen and the University of Gothenburg, where I received my docent qualification in 2017. I earned my Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Georgia in 2012 and subsequently held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Centre for European Research, University of Gothenburg, from 2012 to 2014.

Last updated: 24 Aug 2026 | webbredaktor [at] svet [dot] lu [dot] se