CV

You can find the highlights of my resume below, or download my full resume here.

Contact Information

Name Joep van Lit
Professional Title Postdoctoral Researcher
Email joep.vanlit@ru.nl
Location Elinor Ostrom Building (EOS), room N02.421,

Professional Summary

I am a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer in comparative political science at Radboud University. My research focuses on democratic recession and democratic defence, examining how political elites, institutions, and citizens respond when democracy comes under pressure.

Experience

  • 2025 - today

    Nijmegen

    Postdoctoral Researcher in Comparative Political Science
    Radboud University
  • 2020 - today

    Nijmegen

    Lecturer in Political Science
    Radboud University
  • 2023 - 2023

    Gothenburg

    Visiting Researcher
    V-Dem Institute, Gothenburg University

Education

  • 2020 - 2025

    Nijmegen

    PhD, cum laude
    Radboud University
    Comparative Political Science
    • Thesis: Beautiful Spark of Democracy: The Conditions for Democratic Defence Against Incumbent-led Democratic Recession (published Open Access by Radboud University Press).
    • Supervisors: prof. dr. Carolien van Ham and prof. dr. Maurits J. Meijers.
  • 2017 - 2019

    Leiden

    MSc (res), cum laude
    Leiden University
    Political Science and Public Administration

Interests

Comparative Politics: Autocratization, democratization, democratic defence, autocratic actions, commitment to democracy, conceptions of democracy
Methods: Survey experiments, ethics, interviews, computational social science
Outreach: Public lectures, talks, Q&As

Projects

  • Countering Autocratization

    During my PhD project, I started working on several papers that investigate different actors and different actions of democratic defence. I seek to understand who is an effective defender of democracy, under what circumstances, and using what resistance strategies.

  • DIY Deepfakes

    Together with Michal Mochtak I am developing a workflow to use deepfakes as research tools. An integral part of the project is to empirically investigate the ethical consequences and limits of this, as well as to develop effective deriefing procedures.