Swen Hutter is a post-doctoral research fellow at the European University Institute where he works in the context of the ERC project “Political Conflict in Europe in the Shadow of the Great Recession” (POLCON). Before coming to the EUI, he was a researcher and reader in comparative politics at the University of Munich. In 2012/2013, he was a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute. Hutter studied political science at the Universities of Zurich and Växjö (Sweden) and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Munich. In January 2011, he defended his dissertation Protest politics and the right-populist turn: A comparative study of six West European countries. Studying the relationship between protest and electoral politics is one of the key contributions of the dissertation, which aims to link research on the populist radical right with research on social movements. Currently, Hutter is coordinating a comparative research project on the politicization of European integration. Again, the project looks at different political actors and arenas to obtain a comprehensive picture of the conflicts over Europe since the 1970s (including election campaigns, public debates, and protest events).

Research interests: comparative politics, political cleavages, and social movements and political parties