Jacob Gunderson
About Jacob Gunderson
I am an associate senior lecturer at the University of Gothenburg. I defended my dissertation on January 24th, 2023 in Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Gothenburg in connection with the ERC-funded INTRAPARTY project led by Prof. Ann-Kristin Kölln. I defended my dissertation on January 24th, 2023 in Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Previously, I was also a Guest Researcher with the Zentrum für Zivilgesellschaftsforschung at the Wissenschaftszentrum für Sozialforschung Berlin from January to June 2022. In 2017, I received my BA in Political Science and German with minors in Political Economy and European Studies (Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa) from Carleton College, and I earned a MA in Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2019.
My research interests include party competition in developed democracies, party systems, inequality, and political behavior. My research has been published in the British Journal of Political Science, Political Behavior, Policy and Society, Party Politics, the European Journal of Political Research, and Electoral Studies. In my dissertation, I argue that one cause of political change, broadly defined, in European politics is the weakening of party brands—the image in voters’ minds of who parties are and what they stand for. These party brands are crucial because they form the foundation of how citizens identify, distinguish, and evaluate the political parties competing for their votes. I deploy large-N quantitative, experimental, and interview methods to investigate various ways that party brands have changed over time and influence citizens' political behavior, as well as developing a deeper understanding of the processes that have led to brand convergence.
For more information, see my personal website: jacobrgunderson.com.