Melek Hilal Eroğlu

PhD Candidate in Political Science

University of Pittsburgh

I am a PhD candidate in Political Science at University of Pittsburgh and an Andrew W. Mellon Predoctoral Fellow for the 2024-2025 academic year. My research examines the intersection between affective polarization, out-party hostility, democratic attitudes, voting behavior, and civic education.

Over the last two decades, a dramatic increase in individuals’ hostility toward opposing political parties in many democracies has put these countries on a dangerous trajectory. As hostility intensifies, it is anticipated to contribute to the rise of radicalism and political violence. Thus, in the first branch of my research-my dissertation- I explore 1) how to measure hostility toward multiple out-parties in multi-party democracies, which is currently under review at Electoral Studies, 2) the implications of such hostility for citizens’ voting behavior and democratic attitudes; and 3) ways to reduce high levels of hostility through a survey experiment in Germany that examines the impact of policy and democracy criticisms between out-parties.

The second branch of my research examines the intersection of civic education and polarization. In a first-authored, ERC-funded project, which has been revised and resubmitted to the British Journal of Political Science, we investigate how online civic education can mitigate the anti-democratic effects of partisan polarization. We collect original data from 33 countries with a total of 41,000 participants.

Research

Articles Under Review

Melek H. Eroglu “The Breadth and Depth of Negative Partisanship in European Multiparty Systems”

Abstract

How broad and deep are individuals’ aversions to opposing political parties? Although negative partisanship (NP) has recently become a highly salient topic, existing measures fall short as they fail to account for the intensity of an individual’s dislike nor the number of disliked parties. This paper introduces a novel approach to measuring NP which overcomes these limitations. Using data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) across 31 multiparty systems, I compare the relationship between new and old NP measures on democratic attitudes, support for extremism, and political participation. The findings reveal that the new NP measures go beyond the old measures in explaining adverse consequences of NP on democracies, such as increased dissatisfaction and support for extremist parties, and also show stronger correlations with affective and ideological polarization. This research underscores the urgent need to develop strategies to mitigate NP and its detrimental impacts on democratic systems.

Melek H. Eroglu, Steven E. Finkel, Anja Neundorf, Aykut Öztürk, and Ericka Rascón Ramírez “Choosing Democracy Over Party? How Civic Education Can Mitigate the Anti-Democratic Effects of Partisan Polarization”

Abstract

How can the negative effects of partisan polarization on democratic attitudes be mitigated? Can polarized individuals be persuaded to choose democracy over party, i.e., support a candidate from an opposing party who upholds democratic norms when their co-partisan candidate fails to do so? We tested the effect of an online civic education intervention conducted on over 41,000 individuals in 33 countries that was designed to promote the choice for “democracy” by emphasizing the benefits of democratic versus autocratic regimes. The results are striking: exposure to civic education messages significantly dampens the negative effect of partisan polarization on anti-democratic co-partisan candidate choice. Civic education also has a small positive effect on polarization itself, with further exploration showing that this is the result of increased evaluations of parties that uphold democratic norms and practices, resulting in greater differences between democratic and antidemocratic parties.