New postdoctoral fellow

Ruben grew up on Sotra and has both his bachelor's and master's degree from the Department of Comparative Politics. In March 2023 he defended his PhD thesis «Economic Inequality and Political Power in Norway», also at Sampol. In his PhD project he looked at the correlation between public opinion and actual implemented policies to find out whose opinions politicians listen to. He found significant inequalities in who has political influence, even in a social democracy such as Norway. Affluent citizens with a higher education level enjoy considerably more political influence than the average citizen.

In his postdoc project Ruben will investigate the underlying causes determining why some have more political influence than others and the consequences this has for policy making. He will not only look at the Norway case, but several other western countries. He will write a series of research articles focusing on issues such as (1) business owners influence on policy making, (2) How much economic redistribution we would have were it up to public opinion, (3) How the well-educated and affluent have differing preferences in various countries, and (4) Whether the average citizen is content not having much influence as long as they find the implemented politics acceptable