Next to writing fiction, I am an Associate Professor of Political Communication at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR), University of Amsterdam, with two decades of expertise on the dark side of the mind, political radicalization, and extremism.

My academic work focuses on the dark sides of politics – the use of negativity and incivility in election campaigns in a comparative perspective, the (dark) personality traits of political figures, and political violence. I have published more than 80 peer reviewed articles in journals such as the Journal of Politics, Political Communication, Public Opinion Quarterly, Political Psychology, European Journal of Political Research, West European Politics, International Journal of Press/Politics, Leadership Quarterly, and more. My book DARK POLITICS (Oxford University Press, 2024, with J. Maier) won the 2024 Juliette and Alexander L. George Outstanding Political Psychology Book by the International Society of Political Psychology. My most recent book is THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ATTACK POLITICS (Routledge, 2025, with L. Otto & C. Vargiu). In 2025 I also co-edited the largest ENCYCLOPEDIA OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION (EE Publishing, with M. Grömping & D. Wirz). I am Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of Political Research.

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More information about my academic work can be found here.