Julius Lagodny – PhD Social Science Cornell & Data Analyst

I am a data social scientist and received my PhD from the Department of Government, Cornell University working on political behavior, public opinion, and elections. My research focuses on public opinion and political representation of immigrant-origin citizens in Europe and the US using advanced methods in data science. In my research I focus on small area estimations using advanced statistical models like multi-level regression and poststratification (MRP) using programs like R, Stata, and Python. My 2020 U.S. presidential election forecast was the most accurate of all published forecasts, correctly predicting 49/50 states more than 100 days prior the election.

In my research I look at questions of immigration and immigrant inclusion and incorporation in different western democracies and electoral systems. I am particularly interested in sub-national variations of voting and political participation by taking regional and local context into account for individuals’ behavior and perceptions. The main cases in my research are the US, Germany, and Austria. In my other work I also look at Spain, Canada, and New Zealand.

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In my dissertation titled “Essays on the Political Participation and Views of Immigrant-origin Citizens in Germany”, I research why immigrant-origin citizens participate less in formal politics compared to autochthonous citizens – in particular in countries with restrictive citizenship-regimes like Germany. I argue that restrictive citizenship policies create strong negative externalities for political participation of immigrant-origin citizens. Immigrant-origin citizens in enclaves with many non-citizens perceive ineligibility for formal politics like voting as the norm among their peers. The same is not true for autochthonous citizens. Also, immigrant-origin citizens do not show the same voting gap in areas with very few non-citizens. I use a multi-method approach combining localized public-opinion and panel data, archival and census data to test my hypothesis using data ranging from 1950 to 2020.

Between October 2019 and October 2020, I was a visiting researcher with the chair for Political Sociology at Freie University Berlin – the stay was interrupted by the COVID-19 outbreak. From May 2021 until August 2021, I was an “Ernst-Mach-Stipendium” scholar at the University of Vienna. My research is supported by the Berlin Program for Advanced German and European Studies of GSA at FU Berlin, the EUROLAB at GESIS, the Center for European Studies, Cornell, the Mercatus Center, and the Flournoy Graduate Student Endowed Fellowship.

Additionally, I work on several election forecasts and subnational public opinion models using multi-level regression and poststratification models (MRP).

I have been quoted and cited in several American and international media outlets: The Associated Press, The Washington Post, Le Figaro (France), Infobae (Argentina), Marktforschung.de (Germany), and others.