Find out about the NotLikeUs team
Stefaan Walgrave
Stefaan Walgrave is Professor of political science at the University of Antwerp and spokesperson of the M²P research group. He mainly works on how society and politics are linked, hence on political representation. The societal actors studied are social movements, media and sheer public opinion, and their relationship with individual politicians and parties are at the core of his research agenda. Stefaan is the PI of NotLikeUs and mainly contributes to conceptualizing perceptions of differentness (WP1), and analysing its immediate precursors (WP2; networks) and consequences (WP3; affective polarization).
Stefaan.walgrave@uantwerpen.be
Pierre Baudewyns
Pierre Baudewyns is Professor and member of the Center for Comparative Politics (UCLouvain). His research interests are political behaviour, political attitudes and opinions and survey methodology. Within NotLikeUs, he is involved in perception of differentness (WP1) and causes of perception (WP2).
Pierre.baudewyns@uclouvain.be
Caroline Close
Caroline Close is Professor in political science at the Université libre de Bruxelles (Charleroi campus). She conducts her research within the Cevipol research center. Her work focuses mainly on political parties, elections, participation, and representation. In the frame of the NotLikeUs project, she deals with elite discourses on social media and their potential effect on citizens’ polarization; emotions; and (anti)democratic attitudes and behaviours.
caroline.close@ulb.be
Virginie Van Ingelgom
Virginie Van Ingelgom is an F.R.S. – FNRS Senior Research Associate Professor at the Institut de Sciences Politiques Louvain-Europe, UCLouvain and a visiting professor at the College of Europe. Her research interests focus on the issue of democracy and legitimacy at the subnational, national, European and global levels, on indifference and ambivalence in citizens’ attitudes, on policy feedbacks and in qualitative and mixed methods. She was awarded with an ERC Starting Grant (2017-2023) for her project QUALIDEM – Eroding Democracies. Within the NotLikeUs project, Virginie’s will mainly touch upon WP1.
Anna Kern
Anna Kern is an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science of Ghent University. Her main research interests are political participation and political legitimacy. Within NotLikeUs she will mainly work on horizontal (affective) polarization (WP 3) and anti-democratic behaviour (WP4). For more information see also www.annakern.eu.
anna.kern@ugent.be
Emilie van Haute
Emilie van Haute is Professor of political science at Université libre de Bruxelles (Cevipol/Policy Lab). Her research focuses on political parties, political participation, elections. Within NotLikeUs, she mainly works on WP2 related to the causes of polarization (parties’ discourses and policies), and WP5 on the solutions to moderate polarization. In terms of methods, her research mostly mobilizes survey data and databases.
emilie.van.haute@ulb.be
Karen Celis
Karen Celis is full professor affiliated to the VUB Department of Political Sciences (Brussels, Belgium). She is co-director of RHEA, Centre of Expertise Gender, Diversity, Intersectionality. She conducts theoretical and empirical research on the democratic quality of political representation from an intersectional perspective. Her most recent work engages with (feminist/intersectional) democratic design. She is in charge of political science and interdisciplinary research programmes and projects about gender, diversity and intersectionality, and about political representation, resentment and polarization. Within NotLikeUs, Karen’s research will mainly touch upon WP3 and WP5.
karen.celis@vub.be
Ine Goovaerts
Ine Goovaerts is post-doctoral researcher at the M²P research group of the University of Antwerp. Her research is mainly situated within the fields of political communication, polarization, and public opinion. Within NotLikeUs, Ine’s research will mainly touch upon WP1 and WP3, where she will conduct research on perceptions of differentness and similarity, affective polarization, and the link between the two. Ine is also post-doc coordinator of the project, so you can always reach out to her in case you have questions about the project.
ine.goovaerts@uantwerpen.be
Benoît Rihoux
Benoît Rihoux is full professor in political science at the Centre for Political Science and Comparative Politics (CESPOL) at the UCLouvain. His substantive research interests include political parties, social movements, activism, and gender and politics. He plays a lead role in the development of Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) within mixed methods designs as Chair of the COMPASSS global network (https://compasss.org/) and is joint Academic Coordinator of the broader Methods Excellence Network (https://www.methodsnet.org/). Within NotLikeUs, he mainly contributes to WP1 and WP2 around the description and explanations of perceptions of differentness, and also contributes to the project’s overall methodological coherence.
Benoit.rihoux@uclouvain.be
Kenza Amara-Hammou
Kenza studied international Politics at the University of Gent and recently defended her PhD-thesis called “Theorizing representation from the perspective of the represented – How people in socio-economically difficult situations in Brussels understand representation” at the VUB. She has always, and continues to be, interested in promoting and entering into collaborative partnerships with people in socio-economically difficult situations and civil society organizations. She therefore attaches great importance to exploring academia’s societal role; co-creation and developing alternative research methods. She is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher on the NotLikeUs project.
Kenza.Amara.Hammou@vub.be
Henry Maes
Henry Maes is a PhD researcher currently affiliated with the Institut de Sciences Politiques Louvain-Europe at UCLouvain, and engaged in joint supervision with the Department of Political Science at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). He holds a research master's degree in Political Sciences from UCLouvain. His research focuses on affective polarization, social movements, and gender/LGBTQI+ issues. As part of NotLikeUs, he primarily contributes to WP3, specifically he aims to explore the relationship between social movements and affective polarization.
henry.maes@uclouvain.be
Bram Wauters
Bram Wauters is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Sciences of Ghent University, where he leads the research group GASPAR. He is interested in diverse topics centring around the question how citizens and politics connect. These topics include amongst others intra-party democracy, leadership and candidate selection, citizen participation, political stereotypes, (preference) voting behaviour and political ambition. These topics are often studied with a specific attention for diversity. His research is mostly based upon surveys and experiments.
bram.wauters@ugent.be
Robin Devroe
Robin Devroe is postdoctoral researcher at the GASPAR research group of Ghent University. Her main research interests are political representation, voting behaviour and political (gender) stereotypes, and she has a fascination for experimental methods. Within NotLikeUs, Robin’s research will mainly focus on WP2 and WP3, where she will conduct research on (vertical) affective polarization and potential moderating features, such as gender and ethnic dissimilarity.
robin.devroe@ugent.be
Lore Baeten
Lore Baeten is a PhD researcher and teaching assistant at the GASPAR research group of Ghent University. She holds a master in International Political Science from Ghent University and a bachelor in social work at UCLL. Her research interests include anti-democratic behaviour, citizens attitudes, democratic norms and political behaviour. Within NotLikeUs, she mainly works within Working Packages 5 on anti-democratic attitudes and behaviour.
lore.baeten@ugent.be
Jean-Benoit Pilet
Jean-Benoit Pilet is Professor in political science at Université libre de Bruxelles (within Cevipol research center). His work focuses mainly on democratic preferences, democratic innovations, technocracy, elections, electoral workpackages related to the impact of differentness and polarization on (anti-)democratic attitudes and behaviours, and to the solutions to moderate polarization. In terms of methods, his research is mostly based upon survey data and experiments.
jean-benoit.pilet@ulb.be
Jeremy Dodeigne
Jeremy Dodeigne is Professor of political science at the Research Institute Transitions (UNamur). His research work covers political elites’ behaviour elections, intraparty competition, personalization of politics, and political styles. Within NotLikeUs, he mainly works on the impact of elites’ behaviour on vertical polarization and their effects upon (anti-)democratic attitudes. His research methods mostly cover survey and electoral data as well as content analysis (deep learning techniques).
jeremy.dodeigne@unamur.be
Vincent Jacquet
Vincent Jacquet is an F.R.S.-FNRS chercheur qualifié (senior research associate) in political science at the University of Namur. His research interests mainly deal with the development of citizen participation processes and their impacts on contemporary political systems. Within NotLikeUs, he mainly works within WP1 and WP2. By using qualitative approaches, he will contribute to analysing the origin of affective polarization.
vincent.jacquet@unamur.be
Caterina Mosca
Caterina Mosca is a PhD researcher and teaching assistant in political science at the University of Namur (within the Transition research institute). Her PhD project focuses on the evolution of affective polarization towards minorities since the beginning of the XXI century in three European democracies, namely Italy, France, and Belgium.
caterina.mosca@unamur.be
Jonas Lefevere
Jonas Lefevere is research professor of political communication at the Brussels School of Governance (Vrije Universiteit Brussel). He does research in the field of political communication, studying strategic communication of political actors, electoral behaviour, and the role of policy issues in election campaigns. He has published on these topics in, amongst others, Political Communication, Communication Research, Public Opinion Quarterly, and Party Politics. As of September 2023, he will take up a position as post-doctoral researcher at the M²P research group of the University of Antwerp.
jonas.lefevere@vub.be
Laura Jacobs
Laura Jacobs is a post-doctoral researcher at the M2P research group of the University of Antwerp and scientific collaborator at the Université Libre de Bruxelles within the Cevipol. Her work mainly focuses on the role of polarization, populist communication and group appeals and negativity in elite discourse on social media. She mainly works on the working packages on elite discourse and its ramifications for electoral outcomes. In terms of methods, her research is mostly based on content analysis, survey methodology and experiments.
laura.jacobs@uantwerpen.be
Gaetano Scaduto
Gaetano Scaduto is a PhD student at the Department of Sociology and Social Research at the University of Milan Bicocca. He holds a master’s degree in Public and Public Communication from the University of Turin and is currently a visiting PhD student with the Media, Movement, and Politics (M2P) research group at the University of Antwerp. His research focuses on political cultural stereotypes and political inferences from apolitical cues. Within NotLikeUs, he contributes to the activities of WP2.
gaetano.scaduto@unimib.it
Lisa Janssen
Lisa Janssen is a PhD researcher at the Gaspar research group from Ghent University. She holds a Research Master in the Social Sciences from the University of Amsterdam. Her research interests include affective polarization, democratic support, and electoral behaviour. Within the NotLikeUs project, Lisa focuses mainly on the fourth working package (i.e., (anti)democratic attitudes and behaviour). She writes her dissertation on the impact of affective polarization on citizens’ democratic attitudes, relying on quantitative research methods such as experiments and panel data.
lisa.janssen@ugent.be
Fernando Feitosa
Fernando Feitosa is a postdoctoral researcher funded by FNRS at the Université libre de Bruxelles. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the Université de Montréal. His research interests include political behaviour and public opinion. Within NotLikeUs, he primarily contributes to WP1, WP3, and WP4. His specific focus is on the development of the concept of perception of differences and similarities (PoDS) and its consequences for citizens’ affective polarization and their political behaviour.
fernando.feitosa@ulb.be
Eline Severs
Eline Severs is an Associate Professor at the Politics Department of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). Her research interests fall within the field of democratic theory. She is especially interested in democratic representation, the relationships between civil society and democratic governance, political emotions, and citizens' conceptions of democracy. By entering into conversation with citizens and politicians, she seeks to identify democratic design options that help mitigate affective polarization and political dissatisfaction (WP2, WP3 and WP5). In terms of methods, her research is mainly based on qualitative methods.
eline.severs@vub.be
Louise Knops
Louise Knops is post-doctoral researcher at the VUB. She is interested in emotions, affect, social movements, and climate activism. She has also worked on political representation and is currently interested in affective polarization on socio-ecological issues. She is contributing to the development of qualitative research methods (focus groups) on affective polarization, with a specific focus on emotions and non-electoral polarization.
louise.knops@vub.be
Artemis Tsoulou-Malakoudi
Artemis Tsoulou-Malakoudi is a PhD researcher at the Media, Movements and Politics (M²P) research group of the University of Antwerp. Her research is mainly focused on citizens’ perceptions of others and on affective polarization, and particularly on the potential sources of these phenomena. Within NotLikeUs, Artemis’ research is thus situated in WP1 and WP2, where she studies the relationship between the political homogeneity of citizens’ physical social networks and their perceptions of differentness and similarity.
artemis.tsoulou-malakoudi@uantwerpen.be
Elise Storme
Elise Storme is a TA and PhD researcher at the GASPAR research group of Ghent University. Her main research interests include political representation, strategic political communication, gender, and (social) media. More specifically, she studies whether and how politicians communicate differently on social media based on their gender and the effect these potential differences have on the electorate. Within the NotLikeUs project, her research will mainly touch upon WP2 with a focus on elite discourse and online contacts.
elistorm.storme@ugent.be
Thomas Legein
Thomas Legein has recently obtained his Ph.D. in Political Science at the Université libre de Bruxelles. He is currently exploring the psychological determinants of how individuals perceive intra-party reforms at the Political Psychology Lab (University of Cambridge) with the support of the Wiener-Anspach Foundation. His research interests include party politics, party reform, mainstream parties, representation and political perception.
thomas.legein@ulb.be
Lien Smets
Lien Smets is a PhD researcher in the Department of Political Science at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and the ISPOLE institute at the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL). She holds a master's degree ‘Democracy and Leadership’ from the VUB. Her interests include affective polarization, political geography, political psychology and behaviour. Within NotLikeUs, Lien will mainly work within WP1 and WP3. For her PhD she will focus on the importance and use of place in politics.
lien.smets@vub.be
Elie Michel
Elie Michel is researcher in the Cevipol at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. He is also an Associate Researcher at the CEVIPOF (Sciences Po) and a Fellow at the European Governance and Politics Program of the Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies (EUI). His research interests include comparative political behaviour, public opinion, political parties, and elections, with a specific interest for the study of populist radical right movements. Within NotLikeUs, Elie’s research will focus on affective polarization around the time of elections, as well as the links between group polarization and electoral behaviour.
elie.michel@ulb.be
Ambroos Verwee
Ambroos Verwee is a PhD researcher affiliated with the Department of Political Science at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) and the Institut de Sciences Politiques Louvain-Europe at UC Louvain. He holds a master in Political Science from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and a master in Sociology obtained at the KU Leuven. His research interests include stereotypes, political communication, social media and affective polarization. Within NotLikeUs, Ambroos mainly works within WP1 and WP3, with a specific focus on the use of stereotypes in political communication and its effects on voters.
ambroos.verwee@vub.be
Clémence Deswert
Clémence Deswert is a PhD researcher at Université libre de Bruxelles (within Cevipol research center). Her research interests include political leadership, gender, political communication, and political representation. Within NotLikeUs, her work will mainly touch upon WP2 and WP5, where she will contribute to research on the role of the media and emotions in relation to affective polarization and the perceptions of differentness and similarity.
clemence.deswert@ulb.be
Bjarn Eck
Bjarn Eck is a PhD researcher at the Cevipol department of the ULB. He holds a combined (research) master in European Studies and Political Science from the universities of Maastricht and Cologne. His research interests include affective polarization, electoral behaviour, and public attitudes toward European integration. Within NotLikeUs, he mainly works within WP3 and WP4, with a dissertation that studies how the electoral cycle shapes vertical and horizontal affective polarization.
bjarn.eck@ulb.be
Lucas Kins
Lucas Kins is a PhD candidate in political science at Cevipol (ULB). His dissertation studies the campaign strategies of political actors in Belgium, and focuses especially on elite discourse online. He also works on the digitalisation of party organisations. In methodological terms, he combines survey methods with qualitative interviews and content analysis. As an external contributor to NotLikeUs within the ULB team, he will mainly work on WP2 and WP5.
lucas.kins@ulb.be
Ellen Claes
Ellen Claes is an associate professor at the Centre for Political Science Research and the Didactics in Social Sciences and Citizenship Education group at KU Leuven. Ellen Claes’ work explores the development of civic and intercultural competencies of teachers and the effects of (citizenship) education on democratic knowledge, skills, and attitudes of young people. Within NotLikeUs, she works on WP2 and WP5, where she investigates perceptions of differentness and similarity in adolescence and the potential of political socialization in influencing affective polarization.
ellen.claes@kuleuven.be
Jochem Vanagt
Jochem Vanagt is conducting a joint PhD at the University of Leuven and in the M2P research group of the University of Antwerp. An alumnus of the MSc in European Studies at Maastricht University, his research interests are mainly situated in the field of political behaviour, comparative politics, and political psychology utilizing various quantitative methods. Within NotLikeUs, he will study the interplay between political sophistication, political distrust, and affective polarization, as well as their (collective) consequences on interpersonal relations and electoral democracy, spanning WP2, WP3 and WP4.
jochem.vanagt@kuleuven.be
Jochem Vanagt
Jochem Vanagt is conducting a joint PhD at the University of Leuven and in the M2P research group of the University of Antwerp. An alumnus of the MSc in European Studies at Maastricht University, his research interests are mainly situated in the field of political behaviour, comparative politics, and political psychology utilizing various quantitative methods. Within NotLikeUs, he will study the interplay between political sophistication, political distrust, and affective polarization, as well as their (collective) consequences on interpersonal relations and electoral democracy, spanning WP2, WP3 and WP4.
jochem.vanagt@uantwerpen.be