Andrew James Klassen

Biography

Dr Klassen is a political science lecturer at Charles Darwin University. His main research interests cover comparative public opinion and political institution design. More specifically, he researches the links between institutional or political system design and public support or behavior. For example, how the design of national parliaments, electoral systems, and political institutions affect satisfaction with democracy, political trust, and rates of voter turnout. His PhD thesis was a comparative study of 80 countries analyzing how the design of electoral management bodies affects public perceptions of electoral integrity. A unique aspect of Dr Klassen’s research is simultaneously using multiple cross-national public opinion surveys. The approach was first developed for his postgraduate thesis and has continuously expanded in scope since. Using multiple surveys requires harmonizing existing data by recoding it to create common variables. This facilitates broader empirical analysis, produces more generalizable results, and incorporates research reliability checks. The project includes over 300 cross-national surveys with about 7.5 million respondents from 158 countries since 1962

Research Interest

Elections, electoral systems, and voting behaviour, Public opinion, political support, and government legitimacy, Government, political system, and institutional design, Evidence-based public policy and administration, and Quantitative and public opinion research methods.