My name is Rozemarijn van Dijk and I am currently a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. Besides being an academic, I am a big fan of bird watching, discovering (and more importantly, eating) cheese, listening to podcasts, and reading books. On this website, I offer a brief overview of my research and various other activities.

I began studying Political Science in 2013 at Leiden University, where I completed my bachelor’s degree cum laude. During my studies, I interned at the Netherlands Institute for Social Research, where I discovered my passion for social research. This led me to enroll in the Research Master’s program in Political Science and Public Administration in 2016. I obtained my Master’s degree cum laude in 2019 and went on to pursue a PhD at the University of Antwerp. My dissertation, titled From Admission to Admission. The Recruitment of Women in Politics was supervised by prof. dr. Petra Meier and prof. dr. Joop van Holsteyn.

My research focuses on the underrepresentation of women in politics, with a specific focus on the role of political parties. My other research interests are political violence and its (gendered) effects on political participation; gender quotas; LGBTQ+ party wings.

Since social science research goes beyond academic publishing, I also engage with broader audiences by writing blogs and opinion pieces to share insights from my work.

INTRAPARTY project

As a postdoctoral researcher, I work in the INTRAPARTY project of Ann-Kristin Kölln. I focus on how groups within a political party try to influence the party’s main agenda. What influence strategies do they use? Do they opt for an internal strategy by using internal channels such as party conferences, or do they try to shape the agenda indirectly by being outspoken in the media? Within this project, I pay particular attention to the role of women’s organizations in political parties over time: what issues have they been lobbying for in past decades, and how have their priorities changed?

Dissertation project

My dissertation project was inspired by the puzzle of the underrepresentation of women in parliament. I examined both the demand side of political recruitment (how parties select candidates) and the supply side (the development of political ambition). What rules do parties use to select candidates, and how do these rules affect who gets selected? Is there a gender gap in political ambition among party members? Do inclusive versus exclusive selectorates produce different candidate lists? By addressing these questions, my dissertation provides insight into the interaction of supply and demand in political recruitment, and how this process is gendered. You can read my PhD thesis here.

Other projects

Beyond my dissertation, I am involved in several other research projects. These include work on:

• designing electoral systems for gender parity (with Petra Meier and Petra Ahrens)
• candidate selection in the UK (with Chris Butler, Marta Miori and Rob Ford)
• the role of LGBTQ+ wings in political parties (with Michal Grahn and Sofia Ammassari), and
• (gendered) violence against politicians (with Joep van Lit).