Profile

Biography

Dr Sofia Vasilopoulou is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of York. She holds a PhD in Politics from the London School of Economics. Prior to joining York, she was a Fellow in Comparative Political Analysis in the School of Public Policy, University College London, and a Teaching Associate in Politics at Aston University, UK. In 2014 she was a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Zurich.

Her research interests are in European Union Politics, Comparative European Politics, Political Behaviour and Party Politics with a regional focus on Europe. Her work examines political dissatisfaction with democracy and democratic institutions across Europe. Specific themes include Euroscepticism, extremism and loss of faith in traditional politics.

She currently leads an ESRC Future Leaders Project entitled ‘Euroscepticism: dimensions, causes and consequences in times of crisis’. For information on the project, please visit http://euroscepticism.org/

Her research appears in the European Journal of Political Research, Journal of Common Market Studies, Journal of European Public Policy, Government and Opposition, Nations and Nationalism, South European Society and Politics, among others. She has co-authored The Golden Dawn's Nationalist Solution: Explaining the rise of the far right in Greece (Palgrave Macmillan 2015 with Daphne Halikiopoulou), also published in Greek by Epikdro.

She is the convenor of the ECPR Standing group on Political Parties.

She has been awarded the Peter Mair Party Politics Prize for the Best Paper delivered at the annual 2008 ECPR Summer School on Parties and Party Systems.

She is external examiner to the MSc Democracy and Comparative Politics, Department of Political Science, University College London.

Research

Overview

Sofia works on a number of projects broadly examining the theme of political dissatisfaction with democracy and democratic institutions across Europe. More specifically her research interests include:

• Euroscepticism
• Far right and far left politics
• Populism
• Elite-citizen opinion congruence

The findings of her research feed into debates about democratic legitimacy, accountability and representation in Europe and the European Union.

Supervision

Sofia welcomes research applications in any of her areas of research and expertise.

Current PhD students

• Farstad, Fay. The party politics of climate change.
• Cole, David Landon. The rise of the far right.
• Pentaras, Stefanos. A comparative analysis of the rise of the far right Jobbik and Golden Dawn.
• Valderas, Jorge. The political right in post-authoritarian contexts.

Completed PhD students

• Kaplan, Yilmaz. British Policy towards EU enlargement.

• Tobin, Paul. The factors shaping climate change policy in developed states.

Teaching

Undergraduate

Year 1: Introduction to Democratic Politics

Year 2: Political Enquiry (convenor)

Year 3: Comparing European Institutions (convenor)

Postgraduate

MA & PhD: Introduction to Quantitative Methods of Data Analysis

PhD: Qualitative Research in Politics (co-convenor)

PhD: Political Research & Analysis (convenor)