Philip Leifeld What Are the Core Mechanisms that Drive the Dynamics of Political Discourse?
Philip Leifeld is a Senior Lecturer in Research Methods at the University of Glasgow (UK). In addition, Leifeld holds the position as Director of Postgraduate Research Training in the School of Social and Political Sciences. Previously, Leifeld was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods, and the Max Plank Institute for Demographic Research. His area of specialization is political networks, state actors, and policy networks. In particular, Leifeld focuses on verbal interaction between political actors, and the discourse that surrounds political parlance. For his doctoral dissertation Leifeld was awarded two different ‘Best Dissertation Awards’ (sponsored by the Foundation of Science and Society at the University of Konstanz and the German Employers Federation Südwestmetall).
Area of Research
Political Networks, Network Science, Political Methodology, Computational Social Science
since 2016
Senior Lecturer (tenured)
University of Glasgow (more details)
School of Social and Political Sciences
since 2016
Director of Postgraduate Research Training
University of Glasgow (more details)
School of Social and Political Sciences
since 2016
Senior Lecturer
University of Bern (Universität Bern)
Institute of Political Science
2012-2016
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
University of Bern (Universität Bern)
Institute of Political Science
2012-2016
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
ETH Zurich (ETH Zürich)
Eawag (Water Research Institute of ETH Domain in Zurich)
2011-2015
Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Group Leader
University of Konstanz (Universität Konstanz)
Zukunftskolleg and Department of Politics and Public Administration
2008-2011
Predoctoral Fellow
Max Planck Society
Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods
2007-2008
Predoctoral Fellow
Max Planck Society
Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
2007
Predoctoral Fellow
University of Konstanz (Universität Konstanz)
Center of Excellence "Cultural Foundations of Integration"
2011
PhD in Political Science
Max Planck Society
Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods. Conferred by the University of Konstanz
2007
Master in Political Science
University of Konstanz (Universität Konstanz)
- Animal Behaviour
- Climatic Change
- Ecology & Society
- Environmental Communication
- Environmental Politics
- European Journal of Political Research (EJPR)
- European Union Politics (EUP)
- Government & Opposition
- International Journal of Health Policy and Management
- International Journal of Social Research Methodology
- Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis
- Journal of European Public Policy
- Journal of Public Administration Research & Theory (JPART)
- Journal of Public Policy
- The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO)
- PLoS ONE
- Policy & Politics
- The Policy Studies Journal (PSJ)
- Political Science Research and Methods
- Politics & Policy
- Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences
- The R Journal
- Member of the Advisory Board of the "Comparing Climate Change Policy Networks" Project (NSF-funded), (since 2011)
- Member of the Selection Committee for the Best Conference Paper Award 2016, APSA Political Networks Section
- Co-Organizer of the Advanced Social Network Analysis Seminar Series, Taking Place Bimestrially in Zurich (since 2012)
- Lecturer and Co-Organizer of the Biannual POLNET Summer and Winter School for Political Network Analysis (since 2006 with Interruptions)
Prizes
- Award for the Best Conference Paper in Political Networks at any Conference, American Political Science Association (2015)
- Award for the Best Paper of an Early Career Scholar, 1st European Conference on Social Networks, Barcelona, Spain (2014)
- Award for the Best PhD Thesis in the Social Sciences and Humanities in 2011/2012. University of Konstanz (2013)
Fellowships
- Visiting Scholarship, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Computational Social Science Institute (2014)
- Visiting Scholarship, The Ohio State University. Department of Political Science (2014)
- Visiting Scholarship, University of Maryland, College Park. Program for Society and the Environment (2014)
- MaxNetAging Doctoral Fellowship, funded by the Max Planck International Research Network on Aging (2007-2011)
- Visiting Scholarship, Columbia University. Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (2010)
- Südwestmetall Award for Excellent Junior Research. Sponsored by the German Employers Federation Südwestmetall (2013)
- Co-Principal Investigator for "Overlapping Subsystems: Identification and Integration of Fragmented Games in Swiss Water Politics", funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (2014-2017)
- Principal Investigator for "Feature-Based Extraction of Contentious Actor-Concept Statements from News Narratives", Zukunftskolleg Interdisciplinary Collaborative Project, University of Konstanz (2014-2015)
- Collaborator (Work Package 4) for "CrossWater: Transboundary Micropollution Regulation in Europe" Funded jointly by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) and the National Research Fund of Luxembourg (FNR) (2014-2018)
- Principal Investigator for "Implementation, Adjustment and Application of eXtensions of Exponential Random Graph Models (XERGM)", a Mentorship Grant from the Zukunftskolleg, University of Konstanz (2014)
- Principal Investigator for "Self-Reinforcing Recruitment Processes in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment", an International Short Visit Grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) (2014)
- Principal Investigator for "Temporal Dynamics of Political Networks", a Postdoctoral Research Grant of the Zukunftskolleg at the University of Konstanz. Funded by the Excellence Initiative of the German Federal Government (2013-2015)
- Co-Principal Investigator for "Decision Motives of Federal Constitutional Judges between Law and Politics", Funded by the Zukunftskolleg of the University of Konstanz (2013-2014)
University of Glasgow
Founded in 1451, Glasgow is the fourth oldest English-speaking university in the world. We are a broad-based, research intensive institution ranked in the top 1% of the world's universities. As a member of the prestigious Russell Group of leading UK research universities, Glasgow changes the world with its expertise. Total research income now exceeds £200 million per year and 81% of our research is rated as internationally excellent. Our researchers are making important discoveries, whether that’s opening up a new field of astronomy by contributing to the world’s first detection of gravitational waves, or developing an over-the-counter test for bowel cancer. Our stunning campus, boasts over 100 listed buildings as well as modern teaching and research facilities. We have an ambitious campus development plan in place that will see our staff and students benefit from investment of £1 billion over the next five years. (Source)
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The research presented in this video exposes the inner mechanisms at work in political discourse. By first modelling verbal interaction between political actors with an agent-based model, and then analyzing the interaction with network analysis PHILIP LEIFELD detects four basic mechanisms: innovative and path-dependent mechanisms, as well as constructivist mechanisms (based on learning and interaction between people) and rational-choice mechanisms (based on external ideology). A combination of those four leads to a discourse looking like a “real-world debate”.
LT Video Publication DOI: https://doi.org/10.21036/LTPUB10120
Polarization of Coalitions in an Agent-Based Model of Political Discourse
- Philip Leifeld
- Computational Social Networks
- Published in 2014
