My current research deals with the causes and consequences of political trust and political polarization. The issues I explore include the effects of economic, institutional, and democratic performance on political trust, their relative importance and differences across countries. Another part of this research focuses on the association between polarization and trust, and their consequences for political participation and engagement. The grant is funded by the Polish National Science Centre (2019/32/C/HS6/00421 and 2022/04/Y/HS6/00024).
Methodologically, I am particularly interested in model-based approaches to ex post harmonization of cross-national surveys, and ways of incorporating cross-surveys in measurement and sample representativeness in the models rather than by recoding or other ad hoc adjustments. I’m also working on tools that facilitate ex-post harmonzation of survey data.
I am involved in other research projects:
The project ”‘Paltry Pensions’ in the Context of the Sense of Social Justice and the Goals of Pension Policy. A Multidimensional Sociological Analysis” (2022-2025) led by dr. Danuta Życzyńska-Ciołek studies people who receive the lowest pensions from Poland’s public pension system. The project aims to understand (1) what life paths lead people to receive such low pensions and how these people cope with their situation, and (2) whether a pension system that produces such low pensions is considered just by the pensioners themselves, experts, and the general public. The mixed-method project analyzes data from in-depth interviews, expert interviews, analysis of panel and cross-sectional survey data, discourse analysis, and analysis of administrative data. Funding comes from the Polish National Science Centre (2021/41/B/HS6/04416).
The project “Civil Society Turmoil in Poland. A Comparative Analysis of Contemporary Protest” (2018-2022) is led by dr. Piotr Kocyba and funded by the German Federal Minister of Education and Research. The project collected data from 20 public demonstrations in Warsaw, including such diverse events as Fridays for Future demonstrations, demonstrations among abortion access restrictions, the nationalist Independence March, as well as demonstrations of support and opposition to the judicial system reform.