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.

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.