Welcome!

I am the FLAD Visiting Professor in the Department of Government at Georgetown University. I am also an associate researcher at ICS, University of Lisbon, where I earned my PhD. Previously, I was a visiting doctoral researcher at the EUI and IPP-CSIC. In January 2027, I will join the School of Economics, Management and Political Science (EEG) at the University of Minho as an assistant professor of political science.

I study how political parties adapt, endure, or fracture under grassroots pressure, and how young people gain access to political institutions and act once they are inside. A recurring question is what party organizations, and youth wings in particular, do to channel or to contain the demands that reach them. I use survey experiments with party elites, members, and voters, as well as causal inference methods to answer these questions in Western democracies.

Methodologically, I design and conduct field and survey experiments with party elites, members, and voters. I am also interested in quasi-experimental methods for causal inference.

My research has been published in the European Journal of Political Research, West European Politics, and Regulation & Governance, among other outlets. My first book on youth and politics translates some of these findings for a wider audience and is under contract with Fundação Francisco Manuel dos Santos. I have taught a broad range of comparative politics courses at Iscte, EEG-UMinho, UBI, Lusófona, and Europeia.

Feel free to get in touch at hugoferrinholopes@eeg.uminho.pt.