Introducing the FUS Faculty: Oliver Strijbis

Associate Professor, Political Science

Ph.D. University of St.Gallen
M.A. University of Zurich

Office: Lowerre Academic Center, Office 5
Phone: +41 91 986 36 38
Email: ostrijbis@fus.edu

Oliver Strijbis is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Franklin University. Strijbis received his doctorate in International Affairs and Political Economy from the University of St.Gallen. Before joining Franklin University, Strijbis was an SNSF Professor at the University of Zurich. Strijbis is a co-leader of the “Franklin Political Risk and Opportunity Index” (FRISKOP) and “The Swiss Political Survey Garage”. In his research, Strijbis focuses on elections and direct democratic votes, migration and nationalism, comparative methods and prediction markets. He is an editor of Struggle over Borders: Cosmopolitanism and Communitarianism (Cambridge University Press) and has published more than twenty peer-reviewed journal articles. Strijbis has been an appointed member of the Appointed member of the Carlos III-Juan March Institute (IC3JM), has received a Young Scholar Award for the best Journal Article, and a Swiss National Science Foundation Research Fellowship for Young Researchers. Strijbis is a dedicated lecturer and has received training in higher education with regards to Adaptive Leadership, Supervision in Higher Education, Gamification, and Didactica Mobile Voting and Feedback Systems, among others.

Professional Experience

10/2017 – 09/2023 SNSF Professor (assistant professor), Institute of Political Science, University of Zurich (interrupted between 09/2020 and 08/2021)

09/2020 – 08/2021 Guest Professor for Comparative Politics, Institute of Political Science, University of Zurich

10/2015 – 08/2017 Assistant Professor at the Department of Social Sciences, University Carlos III of Madrid

01/2014 – 09/2015 Senior Researcher at the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB)

10/2011 – 09/2015 Co-founder and member of the board of Principe Consulting GmbH, Maur, Switzerland

10/2011 – 09/2014 Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Comparative Politics at the Institute of Political Science, University of Hamburg

10/2010 – 09/2011 Research Fellow at the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB)

01/2010 – 07/2010 Visiting Fellow, Institute of Political Science, University of the Basque Country, Spain.

10/2007 – 09/2010 Research Assistant, Institute of Politcal Science, University of St.Gallen

2024-2025 Courses

POL 199	You Decide! A Democratic Introduction into the Academic World	FALL 2024
The course combines Franklin University's emphasis on experiential learning and Switzerland's unique heritage as one of the oldest democracies with the most excessive use of direct democracy. Considering the class as a society, the students (the citizens of the society) will participate in the democratic decision-making process regarding various aspects of the course such as the way a given session is structured and a field trip to a democratic institution (e.g. parliament, community meeting, citizen panel), while the course instructor serves in an advisory capacity holding a veto power (analogous to a federal court) if the students' decisions are deemed to be unfair or against democratic principles. By the end of the semester, students will not only learn critical academic skills, but will also experience a variety of forms of democratic decision making and gain an understanding of their strengths and weaknesses in a real setting. Like all first year seminars, this course will cultivate the fundamental critical and academic skills necessary to succeed at a university level.
POL 112	Markets, Policy and Administration	SPRING 2025
The analysis of contemporary challenges calls for a theoretically informed and multi-disciplinary approach. This course introduces students to the key concepts related to allocating tangible and intangible resources under conditions of scarcity, and producing public or commercial goods and services In doing so, the course draws on political, managerial, game-theoretical and economic frameworks and encourages students to apply them to a broad range of cases. The objectives include enabling students to understand and analyze policy-making, the functioning of markets and their social and political implications, as well as the management of public and private institutions. Specific topics covered include (but are not limited to) modes of decision-making, rational behavior, supply and demand, competitive dynamics, welfare, externalities and public goods, consumer choice, and basic monetary and fiscal policy. While special emphasis will be placed on the analysis of political and managerial challenges, the course is relevant to students of other disciplines.
POL 228T	Nations and Nationalism: The Case of Basque Secessionism	SPRING 2025
Basque nationalism is a form of nationalism that asserts that Basques, an ethnic group indigenous to the western Pyrenees, are a nation and promotes the political unity of the Basques, today scattered between Spain and France. Since Basque nationalism has developed at the end of the 19th century it clashed with Spanish nationalism and gave rise to a strong independence movement, which culminated in the actions of the terrorist organization ETA. What are nations and why do people identify with these imagined communities? What makes individuals become nationalist? What are the drivers of secessionism and when does it become violent? And how does secessionism impact political systems and individual behavior? In this course, students will learn political science theories that give answers to these questions and apply it to the case of the Basque Country. The academic travel will bring us to various places in the (Spanish) Basque Country that have been central to the development of Basque nationalism including the cities of Bilbao and San Sebastian. On our trip to the Basque Country, we will study Basque nationalism through ethnographic observation, will visit events through which the Basque nation is constructed and celebrated (e.g. folkloric festivals, typical “Basque” sports, Basque folk and/or punk music), visit expositions on Basque nationalism, and speak to experts of Basque politics.

Areas of Research:

Strijbis focuses on elections and direct democratic votes, migration and nationalism, comparative methods and prediction markets. He is also a co-director of the Franklin Political Risk and Opportunity Index (FRISKOP).

Publications:

Maxime Walder and Oliver Strijbis, 2023, “The partisan heuristic and the voters’ knowledge: The essential role of the information environment”, Electoral Studies 84, online first.

Grossmann, Igor, et al. [139 authors], 2023, “Estimating Scientists’ Forecasting Accuracy of Societal Change: Insights from Two Large-scale Forecasting Tournaments”, Nature Human Behaviour 7(4), 484-501.

Maxime Walder and Oliver Strijbis, 2023, “Negative Party Identification and the Use of Party Cues in the Direct Democratic Context”, Politics and Governance 10(4), 325–335.

Oliver Strijbis, 2023, “Deindustrialization Fosters Ethnic Mobilization: A Comparative Analysis of Ethnic Minority Parties in Western Europe, 1918-2008”, European Political Science Review 15(2), 177–193.

Oliver Strijbis and Siri Völker, 2022, “Candidate resources rather than ethnic voting: Explaining the underrepresentation of Afro-Brazilians”, Journal of Elections, Public Opinion, and Parties 32(1), 214-229.

Oliver Strijbis and Sveinung Arnesen, 2021, "Explaining variance in the accuracy of prediction markets", International Journal of Forecasting 35(1), 408-419.

Oliver Strijbis, Joshua Helmer, and Pieter De Wilde, 2020, “A Cosmopolitan− Communitarian Cleavage around the World? Evidence from Ideological Polarization and Party-Voter Linkages”, Acta Politica 55(3), 408-431.

Nenad Stojanovic and Oliver Strijbis, 2019, "Incentives for cross–ethnic voting in multi-member majoritarian elections: Evidence from a natural experiment", European Political Science Review 11(2), 197-212.

Oliver Strijbis, 2019, "Assimilation or social mobility? Explaining ethnic boundary crossing between the Ecuadorian 2001 and 2010 census", Ethnic and Racial Studies 42(12), 2027-2046.

Aline Hirseland and Oliver Strijbis, 2019, “'We were forgotten'. The effect of linkages between indigenous peoples and political parties on ethnic voting in Bolivia", Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 45(11), 2006-2025.

Oliver Strijbis and Javier Polavieja, 2018, "Immigrants against immigration: Competition, Identity and Immigrants’ Vote on Free Movement in Switzerland", Electoral Studies 56, 150–157.

Oliver Strijbis and Sveinung Arnesen, 2018, "Explaining variance in the accuracy of prediction markets", International Journal of Forecasting 35(1), 408-419.

Sean Westwood, Shanto Iyengar, Stefan Walgrave, Luis Miller, Rafael Leonisio, and Oliver Strijbis, 2018, “The Ties That Divide: Cross-National Evidence of the Primacy of Partyism”, European Journal of Political Research 57(2), 333-354.

Oliver Strijbis, 2017, "Nicht was Du denkst! Was wir von Wahlvorhersagen wirklich lernen können", Politische Vierteljahresschrift 58(3), 442-451.

Oliver Strijbis, Sveinung Arnesen, and Laurent Bernhard, 2016, “Using prediction market data for measuring the expected closeness in electoral research”, Electoral Studies 44, 144-150.

Sveinung Arnesen and Oliver Strijbis, 2015, “Accuracy and Bias in European Prediction Markets”, Italian Journal of Applied Statistics 25(2), 123-138.

Oliver Strijbis, 2015, “Beyond Opportunity Structures: Explaining Migrant Protest in Western Europe, 1975-2005”, Comparative Migration Studies 3(5), 1-22.

Oliver Strijbis and Michal Kotnarowski, 2015, “Measuring the Electoral Mobilization of Ethnic Parties: Towards Comparable Indicators”, Party Politics 21(3), 456-469.

Oliver Strijbis, 2014, “Migration Background and Voting Behavior: A Socio-Psychological Explanation”, Swiss Political Science Review 20(4), 612–631.

Rafael Leonisio and Oliver Strijbis, 2014, “Beyond self-placement: Why the nationalist and not the left-right divide explains electoral behavior in the Basque Country”, Revista Española de Investigaciones Sociologicas (REIS) 146, 47-68.

Oliver Strijbis, 2013, “Prototypical Weighting: Towards a Solution for Macro-Sociological Comparisons of Fuzzy Cases”, Journal of Sociological Methods and Research 42(4), 458-482. (Awarded as the best article of a junior researcher by the Swiss Political Science Association)

Daniele Caramani and Oliver Strijbis, 2012, “Discrepant Electorates: The Inclusiveness of Electorates and Its Impact on the Representation of Citizens”, Parliamentary Affairs 66(2), 384-404.

Oliver Strijbis and Rafael Leonisio, 2012, “Cleavages in the Basque Country: Meaning and Salience”, Regional and Federal Studies 22(5), 595-611.

Rafael Leonisio and Oliver Strijbis, 2012, “El problema de la traducción en el análisis cuantitativo de textos. Aplicación de wordscores y wordfish a las mociones de censura contra el Lehendakari Ibarretxe”, with Rafael Leonisio, Revista Española de Ciencia Política 30, 111-120.

Beatrice Eugster and Oliver Strijbis, 2011, “The Swiss: A Political Nation?”, Swiss Political Science Review 17(4), 394-416.

Rafael Leonisio and Oliver Strijbis, 2011, “Izquierda-Derecha vs Centro-Periferia: una aproximación al discurso de los partidos políticos vascos (1977-2009)”, Revista Española de Ciencia Política 26, 63-85.

Awards and Honors:

Appointed member of the Carlos III-Juan March Institute (IC3JM) (11/2015 – 08/2017)

Young Scholar Award for the best Journal Article 2014 by the Swiss Political Science Association (SVPW)

Swiss National Science Foundation Research Fellowship for Young Researchers (2010)