Marc S. Jacob

I am a comparative political scientist working at the intersection of elite behavior, mass behavior, and democratic institutions. My research spans comparative political behavior (citizen support for democracy, voter accountability, electoral coalitions), elite communication (rhetoric, divisive language, conflict entrepreneurship), and political economy (legislative gridlock and polarization). A thread that runs through much of the work is how elites and citizens together produce the democratic or undemocratic outcomes we observe. My research has appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, the Economic Journal, the British Journal of Political Science, the European Journal of Political Research, and other journals. I am currently writing a book on democratic electoral coalitions.

I joined the University of Notre Dame in 2024. Before Notre Dame I was a postdoctoral scholar in the Polarization Research Lab and a postdoctoral fellow in Stanford's Department of Political Science. I received my Ph.D. from ETH Zurich in 2023.

Book Project

Democratic Pivots: Electoral Coalitions and the Prospects of Democracy
Book project in progress.

The prospects of democracy often rest not in the hands of its most ardent defenders, but in the quiet choices of voters who only weakly prioritize democracy, yet whose electoral choices ultimately decide whether democracy thrives or declines. This book shifts attention to a largely neglected yet decisive group of actors in theories of democratic development: voters who show little attachment to democracy yet, in tight electoral battles between democratic and authoritarian elites, determine whether pro-democracy parties win elections and secure democratic continuity. I call this segment democratic pivots. The book develops a theory of how and why pivots move into and out of the democratic coalition, and argues that the short-term mechanism driving their behavior is not changing attitudes toward democracy but incidental accountability: ordinary evaluations of incumbent performance, combined with the availability of a policy-proximate alternative party (with case studies of Poland, Turkey, and the United States).

Publications

Peer-Reviewed Articles

1. Jacob, Marc, Barton E. Lee, and Gabriele Gratton. 2026. “From Gridlock to Polarization?” The Economic Journal.
2. Jacob, Marc S., Yphtach Lelkes, and Sean J. Westwood. 2026. “Entrepreneurs of Conflict: A Descriptive Analysis of When and How Political Elites Use Divisive Rhetoric.” PNAS Nexus.
3. Cely, Tadeas, Marc S. Jacob, and Sean J. Westwood. 2026. “Office Levels and Voter Accountability for Democratic Norm Violations.” Public Opinion Quarterly.
4. Jacob, Marc S. 2025. “Citizens as a Democratic Safeguard? The Sequence of Sanctioning Elite Attacks on Democracy.” American Journal of Political Science 69(2): 455–470.
5. Jacob, Marc S. 2025. “Citizen Support for Democracy, Anti-Pluralist Parties in Power and Democratic Backsliding.” European Journal of Political Research 64(1): 348–373.
6. Windecker, Paula, Ioannis Vergioglou, and Marc S. Jacob. 2025. “Living in Different Worlds: Electoral Authoritarianism and Partisan Gaps in Perceptions of Electoral Integrity.” British Journal of Political Science 55, e44: 1–22.
7. Wunsch, Natasha, Marc S. Jacob, and Laurenz Derksen. 2025. “The Demand Side of Democratic Backsliding: How Divergent Understandings of Democracy Shape Political Choice.” British Journal of Political Science 55, e39: 1–22.
8. Lipps, Jana, and Marc S. Jacob. 2025. “Undermining Liberal International Organizations from Within: Evidence from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.” Review of International Organizations 20: 357–383.
9. Jacob, Marc S. 2023. “Financing Party Branches: Evidence from the German Federal System.” Regional & Federal Studies 33(2): 259–281.
10. Ozdemir, Ugur, and Marc S. Jacob. 2022. “Values, Taboos, and Votes: How Basic Human Values Affect Populist Electoral Support.” Swiss Political Science Review 28(3): 455–476.
11. Jacob, Marc S., and Jan Pollex. 2022. “Party Fragmentation and Campaign Spending: A Subnational Analysis of the German Party System.” Party Politics 28(4): 770–782.
12. Jacob, Marc S., and Greta Schenke. 2020. “Partisanship and Institutional Trust in Mongolia.” Democratization 27(4): 605–623.

Revise and Resubmit

1. “Systemic, Prohibited Electioneering in the American Pulpit: Evidence from a Computational Analysis of a National Sermon Audio Dataset” (with Yphtach Lelkes, Sean J. Westwood, and Samuel Wolken). PNAS.
2. “Implausible Profiles in Conjoint Experiments: Evidence from Eye-Tracking and Recommendations for Applied Research” (with Franziska Quoß and Ivo Bantel). Political Analysis.

Working Papers

1. “Voting for Pre-Electoral Coalitions” (with Ugur Ozdemir).
2. “When Do Autocratizing Incumbents Lose Elections?” (with Erin Hern).

Teaching

At the University of Notre Dame, I teach Political Campaigning (graduate), Citizens and Democracy (undergraduate), and Research Design for Global Affairs (undergraduate). I have previously taught at ETH Zurich, the University of Lucerne, and Leipzig University.

Contact

marc.jacob@nd.edu
O236 Hesburgh Center for International Studies
Notre Dame, IN 46556