Dr Raul Gomez BA(Law), BA(Politics), PGCHE, MA, MRes, PhD

I am currently working on three main lines of research: radical left parties; electoral change; and gender differences in political engagement and behaviour.

Radical Left Parties and Populism

My research focuses on radical left parties and tries to elucidate what groups of voters support these parties and what factors contribute to their success (or lack thereof) across countries and over time. I am particularly interested in the effect of strategic choices on these parties’ ability to forge different coalitions of support, as well as in the opportunity structures that enable them to flourish.

Most of my research examines European democracies, but my interest is not limited to Europe as radical left parties are present in many other established (e.g. Japan) and younger democracies (e.g. Latin America) around the world.

Electoral change. Support for Mainstream Conservatism.

I am interested in studying the electoral changes that many advanced democracies have been through in the past few decades. Many of these changes are the product of social and political factors that took place decades ago and whose impact materialises in a gradual way through a process of generational replacement.

Although these changes have affected all party families, I am particularly interested in the increasing fragmentation and volatility of mainstream conservative parties' electorates in advanced democracies. This is a topic that has received relatively little attention in the literature, even though in most proportional systems these changes have involved the gradual electoral decline of Conservative and Christian Democratic parties.

Gender Differences in Political Engagement and Behaviour

My research in this area focuses on gender differences in political attitudes, engagement, preferences and behaviour. I am particularly interested in the reasons why men and women tend to have different political attitudes in most countries, and how the actions of parties as well as the effect of policies and/or institutional arrangements may contribute to reducing or increasing those differences.

From a more methodological perspective, I am also interested in exploring whether standard survey questions about politics produce gender-biased results.

I am happy to supervise quantitative or mixed-methods PhDs in the following areas:

comparative politics
voting behaviour
public opinion
political parties
gender differences in political attitudes/behaviour

I currently supervise the following PhD students:

Nawra Al-Lawati
Enis Porat