Florence So

About Florence So

My research spans several areas: the behavioral consequences of national economic conditions; coalition politics; the consequences of gender bias; the political economy of elections; parties and elections; and game theory. I am particularly interested in the relationship between each of these areas, citizens' attitudes towards democracy, and sustaining a well-functioning democracy.

I received my PhD from UCLA (the University of California, Los Angeles) and have previously been a postdoctoral fellow at Aarhus University and a Marie Curie Fellow at Lund University. I have conducted research on voters' perceptions of party leadership elections and the institutional determinants of party leadership tenure. My current book project examines how economic downturns — alongside parties' positions and emphases on traditional morality, authoritarianism, and nationalism — shape voters' likelihood of supporting the head of government's party.

My work also explores the electoral consequences of conflictual government terminations, as well as how coalition collapses driven by scandal affect citizens' satisfaction with democracy. Together with Ida Hjermitslev, Martin Søyland, and Maria Thürk, I am pursuing a research project on how events across the coalition life cycle influence the way citizens evaluate and conceptualize democracy.

I am additionally advancing two projects at the intersection of gender and politics. The first investigates whether women politicians hold more favorable views of liberal democracy than their male counterparts. The second examines the impact of female core ministers on the probability of cabinet termination. In the coming years, I plan to develop a further project on how gender bias shapes political and economic outcomes.

Looking ahead, I will also be deepening my work on the relationship between economic conditions and political behavior. From 2026 to 2031, I will lead an ERC Starting Grant project — ECONENGAGE — examining how national economic improvement affects individual political behavior across four dimensions: (1) political information consumption; (2) reliance on party cues and susceptibility to political misinformation; (3) ideological entrenchment; and (4) the stakes individuals attach to elections and their democratic preferences. In parallel, Tim Hellwig, Maria Solevid, and I are developing a project on how subjective economic insecurity shapes preferences on moral issues and attitudes toward democracy.

For more information, please visit florenceso.org.