Attention, Status, and the Politics of Perception

Our perceptions of political actors are socially constructed and shaped, for example, by what we hear and believe to be shared beliefs. These influences often operate subconsciously, so we are not necessarily aware of them. This raises an important question: can our perceptions change when these factors change? In several papers, I study how social hierarchies, public attention and commonplace events shape, reinforce or disrupt perceptions of political actors.

1
National pride is shaped by how success is attributed

Social Hierarchies and the Politics of National Success

(single authored)

Presented at SEPS Research Seminar, EPSA 2025, SVPW 2025, the HSG winter retreat 2025 and the Comparative Politics Jour Fixe 2024.

Research question:
Why do national achievements elicit pride among some citizens but not others, and why does the identity of the achievers shape these reactions?

Empirical strategy:
Survey experiment in England and Germany.

Findings:
Recognition of national achievements are biased toward high-status groups. Consequently, lower-status groups’ successes are overlooked unless explicitly stated.

Contribution:
Who is seen to represent the nation shapes who receives recognition and who does not.

2
State perception is shaped by how everyone else sees the state

The Social Logic of State Reputation

(first author, with Filippo Pasquali)

Winner of the Stuart A. Bremer Award 2026. Presented at NEPS 2026, Peace Science (International) 2025, the weekly meeting of the International Relations & Data Science research group at ETH Zurich 2025, ECSA 2024, Fragile Lives 2024, and the IPW Summer Retreat 2024.

Research question:
Under what conditions do international perceptions of a state change?

Empirical strategy:
State perceptions is measured based on Eurovision betting odds; two-way fixed-effects panel regressions.

Findings:
State perceptions are socially constructed second-order beliefs. Broad public attention, from many actors, shifts state perceptions.

Contribution:
The kind of attention that shifts state perceptions is difficult to control and it can amplify positive and negative perceptions.

3
Commonplace events differ in their exposure, awareness and outcome structure from focusing events

(first author, with Tabea Ernst)

Presented at EPSS 2026 and the Bigsss Colloquium 2026.

Research question:
How do events that not everyone has heard about change perceptions?

Empirical strategy:
Survey analysis in England. Linear regression, sensitivity analysis, placebo tests.

Findings:
Events that not everyone has heard about change how important respondents who are aware of them perceive the issue at stake. Specifically, we find that respondents who are aware of the racist insults of England’s Jess Carter during the 2025 UEFA Women’s Euros are more likely to believe that racism is more of an issue in women’s than in men’s football.

Contribution:
Population surveys may not always look at the relevant sub-populations and conceptualisations of the outcome when assessing whether an event had an impact on attitudes.