Lukas Hetzer

I am a doctoral researcher in Political Science at the University of Cologne, where I work on political behavior, political communication, and public opinion in Europe.

My research focuses on how citizens and political actors respond to crises and to political and technological change. A recurring emphasis of my work is on democratic politics under pressure, with particular interests in crisis governance, political representation, digital policy, and the communication of political conflict.

Methodologically, I work at the intersection of political science and computational social science. I use large-scale text data, quantitative computational methods, advanced survey designs and (quasi-)experiments to study political discourse, public opinion, and political behavior.

I hold a M.Sc. degree in Social Sciences Research from the University of Amsterdam and a B.Sc. degree in Social Sciences from Humboldt University Berlin. Before joining the University of Cologne, I worked at GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences on election research and data-based knowledge transfer, and held research assistant positions at the University of Amsterdam, Ghent University, and Humboldt University Berlin. I also teach courses on quantitative methods, EU digital policy, and crisis politics.

Please feel free to explore my work and get in touch.