Congratulations to Francesca Bramucci, Jessica Lang, Mariusz Bogacki, Nina Lopez Uroz, and Jos van Leeuwen from the Department of Political and Social Sciences, for receiving their doctorates in January 2026, after unanimous decisions from the jury.
On 8 January, Francesca Bramucci defended her thesis, Shaping Social Norms: Intergroup Social Contact, Women Leadership, and Historical Legacy. The dissertation examines how social norms shape the effects of intergroup contact and female role models on prejudice, discrimination, and gender-related behaviours. It proposes a theoretical framework in which intergroup contact affects prejudice and discrimination through social norms. Two empirical chapters test this framework through a laboratory experiment on discrimination toward transgender individuals and a field experiment examining attitudes toward LGBTQ+ students in Italian high schools. As a result of these experiments, Bramucci found that intergroup contact does not automatically reduce discrimination, and that its effects depend strongly on the social norms already present in a given social context.
Read Bramucci’s thesis in Cadmus.
Jessica Lang’s dissertation, Discursive Struggles over the Environment. Dynamics between Social Movement Organisations, Traditional Media, and Public Opinion in Switzerland, 1974-2024, provides a multifaceted investigation of the relationship between social movement activities and individual political behaviour. While much of the literature on social movements focuses on organisation-building and protest events, Jessica argues that the goal of such movements is surely to move public opinion and thereby effect social and political change. Fusing a social constructivist discursive lens with highly sophisticated causal identification, she tackles this broader agenda through a range of innovative empirical analyses of Swiss social movement activities and their impact on public opinion, voting, parliamentary behaviour, and broader public discourse. Following a lively discussion which took place on 20 January, all jury members, Simon Hix (EUI), Swen Hutter (WZB Berlin), Elisabeth Ivarsflaten (University of Bergen), and supervisor Ellen Immergut (EUI), unanimously agreed that this is an outstanding dissertation with high publication prospects.
Read Lang’s thesis in Cadmus.
Mariusz Bogacki successfully defended his thesis, Another Chinese City? Identity Formation amid Hong Kong’s Autocratisation, on 21 January. Bogacki explores how grassroots Hong Kong identity is formed, lived, and redefined in everyday life amid rapid autocratisation following the introduction of the National Security Law. The dissertation develops a novel analytical and theoretical framework—the Say–Do–See framework, viewing identity as a dynamic, multi-scalar process shaped by the interaction of everyday narratives, practices, and spatial-symbolic perceptions. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with ordinary Hongkongers, the thesis finds that autocratisation has reshaped—but not erased—Hong Kong identity. His thesis jury—Jeff Checkel (EUI; supervisor), Gordon Mathews (Chinese University of Hong Kong; co-supervisor); Stefano Guzzini (EUI); and Lea David (University College Dublin)—was unanimous in its assessment of the thesis as an important, inter-disciplinary contribution to both the theory and methodological practice of scholarship on identity formation.
Read Bogacki’s thesis in Cadmus.
On 23 January, Nina Lopez Uroz defended her thesis, Climate Action at the Crossroads. The Making and Unmaking of Stringent Climate Policies in the Building Sector. The thesis investigates the politics of introducing and implementing stringent climate change mitigation legislation, relying on extensively researched process-tracing of the 65% renewable energy requirement introduced by the 2023 German Building Energy Act and the minimum energy standards for rental properties introduced by the 2021 French Climate and Resilience Law. While the extant literature focuses on electoral and stakeholder pressures as impediments to climate policies, Nina turns to the policy cycle to explain why French and German governments have nonetheless succeeded in legislating and implementing ‘hard case’ policies that impose high costs on large electoral constituencies and economic stakeholders. Jury members Anton Hemerijck (EUI), Emiliano Grossman (Sciences Po), Natascha van der Zwan (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen), and supervisor Ellen Immergut (EUI) agreed that this is an outstanding dissertation that deserves both book and article publications.
Read Lopez-Uroz’ thesis in Cadmus.
Jos van Leeuwen defended his thesis, Mental Health in Modern Societies – Life Course and Social Change in Well-being and Distress in a Global Perspective, on 23 January. The dissertation addresses an important question: Has mental health deteriorated, as is commonly argued? The dissertation takes a global perspective and finds that trends in mental health vary cross-nationally: while they have declined in some richer countries, there have been long-term improvements in others. These trends are driven both by period effects that affect everyone as well as differences in mental health between birth cohorts. Likewise, there are cross-national differences in the age pattern of mental health, with the often-reported ‘middle age dip’ in mental health being present in some countries but not universally. The dissertation makes important contributions to understanding global trends in population mental health.
Read van Leeuwen’s thesis in Cadmus.