My research is sorted into 6 different areas of emphasis below.  Please see my CV for the most up-to-date coverage of my work.

1. Valence, Ideology, and Elections
2. Social Networks, Context, and Political Behavior
3. Citizen Forecasting
4. Resentment and Political Behavior
5. Policy and Political Implications of Political Science
6. Teaching Political Science

*Rebuilding Website: TBA (All replication files forthcoming. Please contact me and I will be happy to send data and do files!)

Valence, Ideology, and Elections

Leiter, Debra, April Clark, and Michael Clark. 2019. “Winners and Losers Reconsidered: Party Support, Character Valence, and Satisfaction with Democracy.” European Political Science Review.

Leiter, Debra and Michael Clark. 2015. “Valence and Satisfaction with Democracy: A Cross-National Analysis of 9 Western European Democracies.” European Journal of Political Research. 54(3): 543-562

Clark, Michael and Debra Leiter. 2014. “Does the Ideological Dispersion of Parties Mediate the Electoral Impact of Valence? A Cross-National Study of Party Support in Six Western European Democracies.” Comparative Political Studies 47(2): 171-202

• BLOG: Leiter, Debra and Michael Clark. 2015. “Voters do not Improve their evaluations of the political system simply because the government is behaving well,” LSE Democratic Audit UK Blog: 

Adams, James, Lawrence Ezrow and Debra Leiter. 2012 “Partisan Sorting and Niche Parties in Europe.” West European Politics. 35(6): 1272-1294

Adams, James, Lawrence Ezrow and Debra Leiter. 2013.“Partisan Sorting and Niche Parties in Europe” in Assessing Political Representation in Europe. Edited by Christine Arnold and Mark N. Franklin.  New York: Routledge.

 Adams, James, Catherine De Vries, and Debra Leiter. 2012. “Subconstituency Reactions to Elite Depolarization in the Netherlands:  An Analysis of the Dutch Public’s Policy Beliefs and Partisan Loyalties, 1986-1998.” British Journal of Political Science, 42(1): 81-105

Social Networks, Context, and Political Behavior

Leiter, Debra, Jack Reilly, and Beth Vonnahme. 2021. “The Crowding of Social Distancing: How social context and interpersonal connections affect individual responses to the coronavirus.” Social Science Quarterly. 102(5): 2435-2451.

• BLOG: Leiter, Debra, Jack Reilly, and Beth Vonnahme. 2021 “The Crowding of Social Isolation: How Personal Relationships Shape Compliance with Attitudes Towards Social Distancing Policies” APSA Political Science Now

Leiter, Debra. 2018. “Split Ticket Voting, Social Networks, and New Democracies: The Case of the 1990 German Unification Election” Political Studies

• BLOG: Leiter, Debra. 2018. “Split Your Ticket?  Split Your Friends: Social Network Disagreement and Partisan Preferences in the 1990 German Election.” Political Studies Association Political Insight

Leiter, Debra and Jack Reilly. 2019. “Using An Agent Based Model to Test Institutional Variation: Creating a Counterfactual World.” Sage Research Methods Cases

Leiter, Debra, Jack Reilly, and Joel Bremson. 2017. “Third Parties, Turnout, and Social Influence: Why Third Party Entry May Decrease Turnout in Plurality Systems.” Computational Social Sciences Society of America 2017 Conference Proceedings.

Citizen Forecasting 

• BLOG: Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball. 2024. “Citizen Forecasting for the 2024 Presidential Race: A Second Sounding” with Michael Lewis-Beck
• BLOG: Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball. 2023. “Citizen Forecasting for the 2024 President: First Soundings” with Michael Lewis-Beck

Leiter, Debra, Jack Reilly, and Mary Stegmaier. 2020. “Echoing Certainty in Uncertain Times: Network Partisan Agreement and the Quality of Citizen Forecasts in the 2015 Canadian Election.” Electoral Studies. 63.

Leiter, Debra, Andreas Murr, Ericka Rascon, and Mary Stegmaier. 2018 “Social Networks and Citizen Election Forecasting: The More Friends the Better” International Journal of Forecasting.  34(2): 235-248

Resentment and Political Behavior 

Kalaf-Hughes, Nicole and Debra Leiter. 2023. “Nasty Women and bad hombres: the effect of racial and gender resentment on evaluations of presidential candidate valence.” Politics, Groups, and Identities.

Kalaf-Hughes, Nicole and Debra Leiter. 2020. “That Woman From Michigan: How Gender Resentment Shapes the Efficacy of Stay-at-Home Policies.” Politics and Gender. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X20000392

Policy and Political Implications of Political Science 

• BLOG: Best, Rebecca, Jessica Blankshain and Debra Leiter. 2023. “What the Israel Defense Forces’ Protests Imply About the Role of  the Military in Democracies.” Political Violence at a Glance.
• BLOG: Best, Rebecca, Simanti Lahiri, and Debra Leiter. 2022. “Five Questions about the Assassination of Ayman Al-Zawahiri” Political Violence at a Glance

• BLOG: Best, Rebecca and Debra Leiter. 2022. “How Germany’s Coalition Change Contributed to Putin’s Strategic Miscalculation in Ukraine.” Political Violence at a Glance. 

Leiter, Debra. 2018. “The Sweeping Changes of Clean Missouri: Issues of Redistricting Reform in Missouri” Missouri Policy Journal 7:38-46

Teaching Political Science

Leiter, Debra. 2023. “Teaching Forecasting Without Teaching Methods.” Journal of Political Science Education. 19(2): 185-194

• BLOG: Leiter, Debra.  2023. “Cricket Brownies and Public Opinion: A Recipe for Public Engagement.” APSA Political Science Educator. (26:2): 31-36

Leiter, Debra and Beth Vonnahme. 2024. “Experiments for All! Introducing Freshman to Social Science Research Using Innovative Experiments.” Teaching Experimental Political Science. Edited by Elizabeth Bennion. Northampton: Elgar Press.

Leiter, Debra. 2021. “The Inquiry’s the Thing: Teaching Quantitative Research Without Teaching Statistical Software,” The Palgrave Handbook of Political Research Pedagogy. Edited by Mallinson, Daniel J., Julia Marin Hellwege, and Eric D. Loepp. London: Palgrave Macmillan: 193-204.