Marta Vukovic is a Senior Scientist at the Department of Government. She holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Vienna, an MA from Central European University, and a BA in Economics, Politics, and Social Thought from Bard College Berlin. Prior to her doctoral studies, she worked as a researcher at the European Social Survey headquarters at City St George’s, University of London.

Her research focuses on democratic backsliding, political behavior, public opinion, and political psychology. In her doctoral dissertation, written as part of the EU Horizon project AUTHLIB, she examined why citizens who express support for democracy nevertheless enable democratic erosion — developing the concept of “conditional guardianship” to explain how heterogeneous democratic understandings, violation types, and elite framing shape citizens’ tolerance of backsliding.

In her role as a Senior Scientist within the Democracy and Human Rights Research Network, she investigates how the interaction of politicians’ strategies and citizens’ attitudes enables or constrains democratic erosion, with particular attention to the conditions under which backsliding can be resisted or reversed.

She draws on large-scale survey and experimental data, with a comparative focus, using a range of quantitative and statistical methods. 

More information can be found on her website.