Dr W van der Brug (b. 1963) has been appointed professor of Political Science, in particular political processes and political behaviour, at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences of the Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA).

Wouter van der Brug’s research focuses on several recent political phenomena, such as the rise of right-wing populist parties and movements in Europe, changes in party systems, electoral processes, electoral campaigns, support for European integration and political trust. He has published extensively on these topics in international journals. His most recent book is The Economy and the Vote, published by Cambridge University Press (co-authored by Cees van der Eijk and Mark Franklin). In the spring of 2007 the volume European Elections and Domestic Politics, edited by Wouter van der Brug and Cees van der Eijk, will be published by the University of Notre Dame Press. Wouter van der Brug is a member of the European Elections Studies Group.

Van der Brug has been employed at the UvA since 1996, first as an Assistant Professor and since 2006 as Associate Professor of Methodology for the social sciences. Furthermore he has been Research Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS) of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). Van der Brug has also been editor of the journal Acta Politica since 2006.

Juries from the Dutch Political Science Association awarded the Heinsius Prize to his master’s thesis for the best thesis in political science of 1992 in the Netherlands, and the Jaarprijs Politicologie (annual prize in political science) for the best PhD thesis in political science defended in 1997.