Brenda Van Coppenolle

Brenda Van Coppenolle is a Senior Research Fellow affiliated with the Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics (CEE) at Sciences Po. From May 2023, she is the Principal Investigator of the European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant POLLOT. Previously, she worked as Assistant Professor at the University of Essex and at Leiden University. She obtained her PhD at the Department of Methodology, LSE in 2014, and was a visiting scholar at NYU.

Her research interests lie in the areas of comparative politics and political economy, and include elections, lotteries, political careers, political dynasties, and political inequality. Her work has been published in World Politics, the Journal of Politics, Political Studies, Electoral Studies, French Politics, and Legislative Studies Quarterly, as well as by Oxford University Press.

She has studied political dynasties in parliaments, and the development of democratic institutions and political careers, in European countries such as France, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and the UK.

Project

POLLOT - Political Lotteries in European Democratisation (ERC Project)

Publications

• Van Coppenolle, B (2024) ‘Unbreakable legacies? Redistricting, Political Capital and Political Dynasties’, The Journal of Historical Political Economy, 4: 1–27.
• Van Coppenolle, B and Smith, DM (forthcoming) ‘ Dynasties in Historical Political Economy ’, in Jeffery Jenkins, and Jared Rubin (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Historical Political Economy, (online edn, Oxford Academic, 18 Aug. 2022), https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197618608.013.10 , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Van Coppenolle, B (2022) Political Dynasties and Bicameralism: Direct Elections and Democratisation in the Netherlands ’, Electoral Studies, 76: 102454.
• Van Coppenolle, B (2020) ‘ How do Political Elites Persist? Political Selection, Political Inequality, and Empirical Historical Research ’, French Politics, 18: 175-188.
• Cirone, A and Van Coppenolle, B (2019) ‘ Bridging the Gap: Lottery-based Procedures in Early Parliamentarization ', World Politics, 71 (1): 197-235
• Cirone, A and Van Coppenolle, B (2018) ‘ Cabinets, Committees and Careers: The Causal Effect of Committee Service ’, The Journal of Politics, 80 (3): 948-963
• Van Coppenolle, B (2018) ‘ Remembering one's Representative: How District Magnitude and List Type affect Candidate Recognition ’, Political Studies, 66 (3): 786-807
• Van Coppenolle, B (2017) ‘ Political Dynasties in the UK House of Commons: The Null Effect of narrow Electoral Selection ’, Legislative Studies Quarterly, 42 (3): 449-475
• Berlinski, S, Dewan, T and Van Coppenolle, B (2014) ‘ Franchise Extension and the British Aristocracy ’, Legislative Studies Quarterly, 39 (4): 531–558
• Other Publications

Book Reviews

• Van Coppenolle, B (2020) ‘ Book review of Dynasties and Democracy: The Inherited Incumbency Advantage in Japan. By Daniel M. Smith’ , The Journal of East Asian Studies, 20 (1): 123-124

Blog Posts

• Van Coppenolle, B (2018) ‘ Democratic dynasties: why are certain families successful in politics? ’, British Politics and Policy at LSE, (11 Jan 2018). Blog Entry

Contact 

brenda.vancoppenolle@sciencespo.fr

Website: https://sites.google.com/site/brendavancoppenolle/

Twitter: @BVanCoppenolle