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Staff Profile

Dr Maarja Luhiste

Reader in Comparative Politics & Gender, Head of Politics (with Prof Feklyunina)

Background

I am a Reader in Comparative Politics & Gender, current Co-Head of Politics (with Prof Valentina Feklyunina), and Deputy Head of School of Geography, Politics and Sociology.


My main research fields include gender and political communication, comparative politics and elections, and survey research. I am particularly interested in how different institutions - such as political parties, media (both traditional and new media), and electoral rules - either facilitate or hinder women’s representation across contexts and how citizens respond to that. I study these questions mostly in the context of European democracies.


I completed my BA in Government and Politics at the University of Tartu, Estonia, in 2007, and worked briefly as a civil servant in the Estonian Ministry of Social Affairs before continuing my studies in the Netherlands, where I completed my MA in Political Science at the University of Leiden in 2009. The same year, I was awarded a Marie Curie Early Career Fellowship to study for a PhD at the University of Exeter within the wider Marie Curie Initial Training Network 'ELECDEM'. I completed my PhD on 'Candidate Gender and Electoral Success in PR List Electoral Systems' in 2013. I was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow for the European Research Council funded 'ResponsiveGov' project at University of Leicester between 2012 and 2015. In 2015, I was appointed to a Lectureship in Politics of Gender at Newcastle University. 


Before taking on the responsibilities of the Co-Head of Politics (2023), I have served as the School Director of Research and Impact (2021-2023), Co-Chair of the Governance and Political Organisations Research Cluster (2022-), Lead-organiser of the PSA's Elections, Public Opinion and Parties (EPOP) Special Group Conference (2022), School Athena Swan Academic Lead (2018-2023, successful Athena Swan Silver Award 2023), HaSS Faculty Interim Director of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (2020), School Director of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (2018-2020), Co-Founder & Co-Chair of the Quantitative Politics Research Group (2018-2020), Co-Founder of the Gender and Politics Research Group (2018).


BlueSky: @maarja.bsky.social

 

Research

Research Interests

My research interests include gender and political communication, participation and engagement; political representation; electoral systems; European Parliament elections; and quantitative research methods. While most of my research focuses on political elites, I am also engaged in projects that examine the public opinion aspect of gender, communication, and representation.


Selection of current research projects


"Public Perceptions, Politicians' Lived Experiences and Interest Representation"  - collaborative project with Dr Zachary Greene (University of Strathclyde) and Dr Louise Luxton (University of Manchester), funded by Newcastle University's Global Engagement Fellowship fund and Newcastle University's School of GPS Covid-19 Impact Fund. This project, building on our LSE British Politics & Policy blog post, aims to examine how lived experiences and self-professed interests affect political elites' policy decisions, especially under unprecedented circumstances (i.e., global pandemic) or in contexts of unarticulated interests. We also explore how knowledge of politicians' lived experiences influence citizens' evaluation of governments' and parties' policy-making competence on specific issues. 


In recent years I have also returned to one of the questions that excites me the most in the gender and politics scholarship: how do parties select candidates and how does it affect the equality of political representation across contexts? Relatedly, I am currently working on two co-authored papers with Dr Thomas Daeubler (University College Dublin) and Dr Mihail Chiru (University of Oxford) on gender and candidate selection at the European Parliament elections. As most candidates do not get elected the first time around, I have also turned my attention, together with Dr Heiko Giebler (Free University Berlin) to the retention of previously successful and unsuccessful male and female candidates.


PhD candidates

Completed

Louise Luxton (2024, Newcastle University), "Women’s Political Parties’ Issue Concerns and Communication Strategies"


External Examiner

Jihed Ncib (2025, University College Dublin), “Machine Learning Approaches to Understanding Legislative Economic Discourse”


Laszlo Horvath (2018, University of Exeter), “Role model effects on women’s political engagement: Observational and experimental approaches to measurement & two studies on mediation"


Internal Examiner

Rob Cronin (2024, Newcastle University), “Performing Populism in Online Videos: A Study of the 2019 UK General Election”


Marloes Jansen (2021, Newcastle University), “Unravelling Gender, Party and Politics in 280 Characters: An Exploration of British Politicians’ Tweets during and between Election Campaigns”


Craig Johnson (2017, Newcastle University), “Co-Operation or Competition: Incentives and Obstacles to Co-operation between Labour and the Liberal Democrats”


Prospective PhD students: I am open to advising projects related to gender and political representation, political communication, electoral systems, party politics, public opinion, and European politics. Methodologically, I have most of my expertise in quantitative and computational methods but I also have an interest in empirical projects applying mixed methods approach.





 

 

Teaching

Undergraduate Teaching: POL1015 'The Westminster System: the UK in Comparative Perspective', POL3046 'Dissertation in Politics'


Postgraduate Teaching: POL8041 'Thinking about Politics', POL8099 'Dissertation in Politics'




Publications