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Arndt Leininger

@aleininger.bsky.social
1.2K followers 310 following 188 posts

Professor of political science, especially methods @politikuhh.bsky.social @uni-hamburg.de | #PhD @thehertieschool | founding member @CorrelAid | he/him/🍠

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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Government status matters, though: the same state party is less supportive in manifestos written in government than in opposition. This is clearest for the CDU and SPD, the parties that alternate in office most, though subsample estimates are noisier. 9/
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Challenger parties (those that have not yet governed) support direct democracy much more than mainstream parties. But looking within parties over time, they don't drop the issue after entering government for the first time. 8/
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Using data on continuous party positions on economic and cultural left-right dimensions (1990–2017) reveals that the cultural dimension is more strongly associated with support than the economic one. Support is higher at both cultural ends than in the middle. 7/
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Regression analyses show that left-of-center manifestos contain significantly more supporting sentences than those of the centrist parties. Right-of-center parties also exceed the center, but by a smaller margin. Populism adds support beyond what left-right positioning predicts. 6/
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Who talks about it favorably? The left-of-center Greens and Die Linke/PDS, but also the populist radical right AfD, in most of their manifestos. The liberal FDP and the social-democratic SPD only in about half. And the Christian Democratic CDU and CSU rarely. 5/
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
First finding: when parties mention direct democracy, they are almost always in favor. About 75% of sentences are supportive; fewer than 5% are opposed. Skeptical parties don't argue against it. They stay silent, as salience theory predicts. Over time, the topic gains traction. 4/
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Data: 701 manifestos of German parties from national and state elections, 1975–2017. A custom dictionary finds 2,209 sentences on direct democracy. An LLM codes each as supporting, opposing, or neutral, validated against three human coders. 3/
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
New in @govandopp.bsky.social (open access) "Explaining the Positions of Political Parties Towards Direct Democracy" Citizens in many democracies want more direct democracy, but reforms lag behind. Why? I look at the actors who would have to share power: parties. 🧵 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Who reacts most? Rural respondents and those born near where they live, i.e., those with stronger ties to place.
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
A conjoint experiment mirroring the Bundestag ballot (name, party, occupation, residence) shows that candidates with foreign-sounding or other-region surnames are less likely to be chosen than those with local or generic names. The foreign-name penalty exceeds the white- vs. blue-collar gap.
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Study 2: a survey in six German regions. Can people actually spot local names? Yes. The more concentrated a surname is in their region, the more respondents classify it as local.
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
And it's mostly a rural phenomenon: surname effects are pronounced in rural constituencies and essentially absent in cities.
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Result: local names win votes. With year, party & constituency fixed effects, a local name is worth about 1 pp of the candidate vote, more than being born in the constituency and close to the bonus of a doctorate. Robust to controls for birthplace, residence, and name frequency.
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Study 1: We mapped the surnames of 5,757 constituency candidates in Bundestag elections 2005–2021 using a phone-book database (GeoGen) and measured how concentrated each name is around the candidate's constituency. Süßmair in Augsburg: very local. Schmidt: everywhere.
Four maps of German administrative districts, each shaded by how often one candidate’s surname occurs there, with a marker showing that candidate’s constituency. Occurrences cluster tightly in one region in panels a, b, and d, and spread across nearly all districts in panel c.
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
Aufregend; Nachdem ich schon mehrfach mit den Daten gearbeitet habe, gehe ich nun erstmals selbst als Datenpunkt in die repräsentative Wahlstatistik ein.
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
Somehow I always take up new positions on April Fool's Day but this is no joke: as of today I am professor of political science, especially methods @uni-hamburg.de. Obviously I'm stoked to have landed a permanent position and look forward to working w/ great new colleagues @politikuhh.bsky.social
Allende-Platz 1, ein Standort der Politikwissenschaft der Uni Hamburg.
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
Ich kann mich nicht erinnern wann zuletzt ein einziger Wal so viel Aufmerksamkeit auf sich gezogen hat. Fühle mit allen Walforscher:innen, die jetzt diesen Einzelfall erklären müssen.
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 29/03/2026
Kürzere Laufzeit als die Ampel... aber die hat auch mehr als die halbe Distanz geschafft.
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 29/03/2026
Berlin Halbmarathon, Ende Merz 2026
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
Talk about critical infrastructure and overreliance on a single service provider. I can't access a host of websites, nor download academic articles, etc., because #Cloudflare has technical issues.
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 25/10/2025
Die, die am häufigsten im Stadtbild unterwegs sind, stimmen am wenigsten zu. 🤷 www.zdfheute.de/politik/deut...
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
In line with our theory, we find that incumbents and high-profile party members are punished more by voters. They lose more votes compared to lower-ranking party members. 6/
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
We estimate the effect of the scandal, a loss of 4 percentage points to the party, through a difference-in-differences design—by differentiating trends in pre-scandal postal and post-scandal urn voting. 3/
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 08/05/2025
New 📰: In "Can Individual MPs Damage Their Party’s Brand? Quasi-Experimental Evidence from a Public Procurement Corruption Scandal" out in @thejop.bsky.social @lukrudolph.bsky.social and I show that the "mask affair" cost the CDU 4%-points in elections. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/... 1/
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
Of course, some constituency results ended up different than expected but a citizen forecast also gives you pretty accurate expectations of which races will be close:
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
We had hoped to get this out before the 2025 election but, well, the government broke before that. Here are a few insights from the article: 1. Forecast worked relatively well overall and, as expected, groups forecasts much accurately than individual respondents.
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
New #openaccess "Citizen forecasting in a mixed electoral system: The 2021 German federal election as a test case" (with Andreas Murr, @lstoetze.bsky.social and @markkayser.bsky.social) in International Journal of Forecasting. doi.org/10.1016/j.ij... 1/
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 29/04/2025
Another great publication by @ttichelbaecker.bsky.social and his first with TU Chemnitz affiliation: "Does political violence undermine descriptive representation? The case of women in politics" out in EJPR. #openaccess Thanks for helping us put Chemnitz on the map, Thomas! doi.org/10.1111/1475...
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 29/04/2025
Very happy and proud to see @felixgruenewald.bsky.social 's paper "‘Seen one, seen ‘em all’: political outgroup homogeneity and negative affect" in print @wepsocial.bsky.social. One of the first outputs of our @dfg.de funded project on polarization. Check it out, it's #openaccess
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
After 2 terms of office, I am stepping down as spokesperson for the Methods Section of the @dvpw.bsky.social. Many thanks to my co-speakers @gessler.bsky.social and @denis-cohen.bsky.social for the great collaboration and the lovely gift.
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
Der Aufstieg der Linken fasziniert mich. Ich hatte da so eine Vermutung und tatsächlich ist es so: Die Linke gewinnt dort wo die Grünen verlieren. Der Zusammenhang ist bemerkenswert, der Zusammenhang zu Gewinnen/Verlusten der SPD andersrum und zu denen der CDU nicht vorhanden.
Starke positive Korrelation zwischen Linken Zugewinnen und Grünen Verlusten in Wahlkreisen.Negative Korrelation zwischen Linken Zugewinnen und SPD Verlusten in den Wahlkreisen.Keine Korrelation zwischen Linken Zugewinnen/Verlusten und CDU Zugewinnen/Verlusten in den Wahlkreisen.
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
What we see is not first-time voters being more left-wing than in 2021. 49% of youths voting for SPD/Greens/Linke in 2025 vs 46% in 2021. What we see is that most progressive youths are choosing Linke instead of SPD and Greens now.
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
Viele teilen Karten, die altbekanntes zeigen: die AfD ist die Partei des Ostens. Viel bemerkenswerter erscheint mir: Die Linke ist auf dem Weg, zu einer gesamtdeutschen Partei zu werden. (Links 2021, rechts 2025)
Deutschlandkarte des Die Linke Ergebnis in 2021: Schwerpunkt in OstdeutschlandDeutschlandkarte des Die Linke Ergebnis in 2025: deutlich ausgeglichenere Verteilung des Wahlergebnisses zwischen West- und  Ostdeutschland
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 24/02/2025
Erstmal ☕ nach der Wahlnacht. Zum Glück habe ich noch alle Tassen im Schrank.
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 23/02/2025
Symbolbild
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
Auch der @tagesspiegel.de berichtet über die Studie von @krausewe.bsky.social und @christinagahn.bsky.social und vergisst, die beiden zu erwähnen. Liest sich als hätte @felixkiefer.bsky.social nicht die Studie, sondern nur den SZ-Artikel gelesen. Studie ist nicht veröffentlicht, ein Working paper.
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
Stabiler Typ
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
Tausende Demonstrierende vor dem "Haus des Politikwechsels". Was damit gemeint ist, weiß man nun.
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Arndt Leininger @aleininger.bsky.social · 20/12/2024
🚨 Job alert: I have an opening for a researcher position (65% FTE, 2 years) in a project on "Elite Affective Polarization in Israel and Germany" funded by the German Israeli Foundation and conducted jointly w/ @liorsheffer.bsky.social. 🗓️ 17/01/2021 www.tu-chemnitz.de/verwaltung/p...
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