Welcome!

I am a PhD student in Political Science and Sociology at the Scuola Normale Superiore. My ongoing doctoral research focuses on social cleavages and political behaviour in Southern Europe. On a parallel endeavour, I have also been working on topics of political representation and constituency service in Sub-Saharan Africa as part of the project HOME - How Members of Parliament in Africa Represent Their Constituencies.

My research interests are concerned with the interplay between inequality, culture, and politics. In the context of my doctoral research, I am interested in examining how social inequalities come to shape political attitudes, preferences, and behaviour. The underlying assumption is that attitudes and behaviour cannot be understood as automatic reflections of material conditions. Instead, the relevance of social inequalities lies in how they are mediated by symbolic boundaries and processes of political activation that shape political attitudes, preferences, and behaviour. In particular, I seek to understand when and how structural divisions become politically meaningful, and how they are interpreted, mobilised, or instrumentalised by political actors.

I hold an MSc in Sociology from ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon, a Postgraduate Diploma in Social Research Methods from the Institute of Social Sciences (ICS), University of Lisbon, and a BA in Political Science and International Relations from NOVA University of Lisbon. In 2023, I was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Department of Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at Brown University.

If any of this aligns with your interests or you’d like to connect, feel free to reach out at andre.marinha@sns.it