I am an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of St. Gallen (HSG), School of Economics and Political Science. I was recently awarded the Eccellenza Professorial Fellowship grant (Starting Grant) for the project ‘Varieties of Expertise‘ (2022-2027) from the Swiss National Foundation. Prior, I was a Senior Researcher in Comparative Politics at the University of Zurich.
I am also an Associate member of the Electoral Psychology Observatory at the London School of Economics and an Associate Researcher at the European Governance and Politics Program (EGPP) of the Schuman Center at the European University Institute, where I will be spending Spring 2023.
My work focuses on political behaviour and comparative politics. I am interested in studying societal challenges to democratic systems, in particular, citizen attitudes towards experts, technocratic politics, rising political distrust, populism and democratic backsliding. My work has appeared at the American Journal of Political Science, the European Journal of Political Research and the European Political Science Review among others, and I have co-edited the volume on “The Technocratic Challenge to Democracy” (EUROPP post).
I received my PhD in Government from the London School of Economics in 2016. When I am not discussing politics and social science research, my non-academic interests extend to cognitive psychology, animal behaviour and all things related to nature and the outdoors!
You can contact me vie email at eri.bertsou[at]unisg.ch or follow me on twitter @EriBertsou.
