Dr Stefanie Reher

Reader

Politics

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Personal statement

I joined the School of Government and Public Policy in 2017 as a Chancellor's Fellow and became a Senior Lecturer in 2019. Before moving to Glasgow, I was a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Copenhagen. I completed my DPhil at the University of Oxford, Nuffield College. My research focuses on political representation, behaviour, and attitudes. I use quantitative methods to study how well public policy reflects the preferences and views of citizens, what explains differences in representation between different social groups and countries, and how it affects individuals' attitudes towards their political system. My current work focuses in particular on access to politics for disabled people; I hold an ESRC New Investigator grant to study how voters perceive disabled election candidates. You can find further information about my research on my website: http://mwpweb.eu/StefanieReher/.

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Professional Activities

Diversity and Inclusion among Experts and the Legitimacy of Deliberative Mini-Publics
Speaker
4/7/2024
University of Helsinki
Visiting researcher
15/5/2023
Citizen assemblies must report on expert diversity and inclusion
Blogger
15/11/2022
Participatory vs Representative Democracy: Citizen Consultation and the Legitimacy of Policymaking
Speaker
5/10/2022
DRG Launch Workshop
Organiser
8/6/2022
Voting for Disabled Candidates
Speaker
5/5/2022

More professional activities

Projects

Why so few working-class women in politics? A comparative case of British and Scottish Elections
Sylvester, Christine (Principal Investigator) Reher, Stefanie (Academic) Alexiadou, Despina (Academic)
In the UK, less than three percent of members of parliament (MPs), and none of those newly elected in the 2017 and 2019 elections, have a genuine working-class background, which unfavourably compares to the 34 percent of the British population with a working-class background. At the same time, while women are still underrepresented in politics their share of MPs has been constantly rising, constituting now 34% of all MPs compared to 3% in 1979. Nonetheless, the significant changes in the socio-economic profiles of elected politicians have mostly gone unnoticed. These changes have resulted in a fundamental shift in political representation. Though politicians never closely mirrored society, over time there is even less resemblance between political assemblies and society in socio-economic terms.

This project will explore gender and class inequalities within representative institutions in the UK and Scotland. To do this, the project will first, provide a new theory on the intersection of gender and social class. How should we best conceptualise and measure women candidates’ social class? Second, the project will analyse and code data on Westminster candidates from 1974 to 2015. These data, which include information on candidates’ education and profession, have been collected by professors Rosie Campbell and Jennifer Hudson and shared with Dr Alexiadou. This analysis will be the first time we will record temporal changes in the numbers of top candidates and British MPs in terms of both their gender and social class. To this day, there is no report of the socio-economic backgrounds over time of the men and women that run for office and/or have entered parliament. Finally, the project will be the first to collect data for the latest election in Scotland on the top candidates and MSPs in the latest Scottish elections, in terms of both their gender and social class.
03-Jan-2024
How do voters perceive disabled candidates (New Investigator)
Reher, Stefanie (Principal Investigator)
How do voters perceive disabled candidates
01-Jan-2019 - 30-Jan-2023
Tender for a Reserch Project: Barriers to Political Representation: Disability and the Enable Fund Project Ref: GEO2018/03
Reher, Stefanie (Principal Investigator)
01-Jan-2018 - 31-Jan-2020
The Role of Disability in Evaluations of Political Candidates
Reher, Stefanie (Principal Investigator)
01-Jan-2018 - 30-Jan-2019

More projects

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Contact

Dr Stefanie Reher
Reader
Politics

Email: stefanie.reher@strath.ac.uk
Tel: 548 2219