Florian S. Schaffner
  • Publications
  • Working Papers
  • Teaching
  • Software
  • Contact

Florian S. Schaffner

Postdoctoral Researcher
Department of Political Science
University of Zurich

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About Me

I am a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Political Science at the University of Zurich. My research focuses on political behavior, political psychology, affective polarization, representation, and direct democracy. I am also interested in methodological issues in computational political science, such as quantitative text analysis and machine learning. I received my PhD from the University of Oxford, where I examined the effects of empathy on political behavior.


Education

DPhil in Politics
University of Oxford, 2024

MSc in Comparative Politics
London School of Economics and Political Science, 2018

BA in Social Sciences
University of Zurich, 2016


Publications

Schaffner, Florian S. (2020) Moaners, Gloaters, and Bystanders: Perceived Fairness of the United Kingdom’s 2016 Referendum on the European Union. Political Studies, 69(2), 278–306. Link


Working Papers

Comparing the Performance of Machine Learning Ensembles for Multilevel Regression and Poststratification Models (with Philipp Broniecki, Lucas Leemann, and Reto Wüest)

Empathy and Affective Polarization After the Brexit Referendum

Parties and the People: Why Do Parties Support Direct Democracy? (with Sarah Engler and Lucas Leemann)


Teaching

Natural Language Processing for Political Science (Postgraduate), Department of Political Science, University of Zurich, Spring Semester 2025

Master’s Thesis Colloquium (Postgraduate), Department of Political Science, University of Zurich, Spring Semester 2025

Preparation for the Research Seminar Political Data Journalism (Postgraduate), Department of Political Science, University of Zurich, Fall Semester 2024

Political Systems and Theories I, Lectures (Undergraduate), Department of Political Science, University of Zurich, Fall Semester 2024

Quantitative Text Analysis (Postgraduate), Department of Political Science, University of Zurich, Spring Semester 2024

Political Systems and Theories II, Tutorials (Undergraduate), Department of Political Science, University of Zurich, Spring Semester 2024

Political Systems and Theories I, Tutorials (Undergraduate), Department of Political Science, University of Zurich, Fall Semester 2023

Quantitative Text Analysis (Postgraduate), Department of Political Science, University of Zurich, Spring Semester 2023

Political Systems and Theories II, Tutorials (Undergraduate), Department of Political Science, University of Zurich, Spring Semester 2023

Political Systems and Theories I, Tutorials (Undergraduate), Department of Political Science, University of Zurich, Fall Semester 2022

Intermediate Statistics (Postgraduate), Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, Michaelmas Term 2021

Intermediate Statistics (Postgraduate), Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, Michaelmas Term 2020

Thesis Supervision (Undergraduate), Wadham College, University of Oxford, Trinity Term 2020

Introduction to Statistics (Postgraduate), Faculty of Law, University of Oxford, Michaelmas Term 2019


Software

autoMrP: Improving MrP with Ensemble Learning. R package, available on CRAN

bodleianlibraries: Search the Bodleian Libraries Catalogue (SOLO) directly from the R console. R package, available on GitHub

websearchr: Access Domains and Search Popular Websites. R package, available on CRAN

xaringanbeamer: Beamer theme for the xaringan package. R package, available on GitHub

Xplorer: Convenient Data Exploration. R package, available on GitHub


Contact

Dr. Florian Schaffner
Department of Political Science
University of Zurich
Affolternstrasse 56
8050 Zurich
Switzerland

Office: AFL-H-304
E-mail: schaffner@ipz.uzh.ch

 
  • © Florian S. Schaffner 2024