Dr. Alex Mierke-Zatwarnicki

Dr. Mierke-Zatwarnicki is a long-term guest researcher at the Center for Civil Society Research. She is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at SOCIUM & the University of Bremen. She previously held fellowships at the European University, Stanford University, and Vanderbilt University, and holds a Ph.D. In Government from Harvard University.

Her research focuses on the organizational foundations of party politics. Taking a macro-historical, mixed-methods approach, she examines how parties build coalitions across social groups, how they mobilize identities into electoral competition, and how these dynamics have evolved since the mass party era.

At the WZB, Alex is working with colleagues in the ZZ group on a book project which examines the extent to which new political and social divides structure individuals' participation in civil society.

Prior to her Ph.D., Dr. Mierke-Zatwarnicki completed a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science at the University of British Columbia and a Master’s degree in Political Science at the University of Toronto. She is originally from Vancouver, Canada.