Inari Sakki, D.Soc.Sc., is Professor in Social Psychology at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Between 2020-2024 she leads two projects on populism “Populist Attraction” funded by Kone Foundation and ‘Mobilising Populism: its representations, affects and identities’ funded by the Academy of Finland. Inari’s core interests lie in the field of societal and political social psychology, including research on political communication, nationalism, populism, national and European identity, collective memory, social representations, discourse, visual and multimodality. Inari’s work has been published in international peer-reviewed journals in the fields of social and political psychology, nationalism and memory studies, education, qualitative research methods, and discourse studies.
Eemeli Hakoköngäs works as a university lecturer in social psychology at the university of Helsinki. His research focuses on collective memory, social representations of history and politics of history from the social psychological perspective. In addition, his research interests include visual culture studies and visual research methods.
Jari Martikainen works as a university lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences (Social Psychology) at the University of Eastern Finland. He holds a D.Soc.Sc. degree in Social Psychology (University of Eastern Finland, 2020), Ph.D. degree in Art history (University of Jyväskylä, 2011) and M.Ed. degree in Education and Adult Education (University of Joensuu, 2007). His interdisciplinary research combines approaches of social psychology, visual culture studies and pedagogy focusing on social representations, visual representations, visual representations of teachership and leadership, visual and arts-based research methods and pedagogy of art history.
Helenor Tormis (f. Ojapõld) is a Ms.Soc.Sc. in social psychology from the University of Eastern Finland (UEF) and works in the project as a doctoral researcher. In her master’s thesis, she studied affective polarisation in the case of IS-affiliated Finnish women and children. Within the project, she is interested in populist thinking and motivated to examine what constitutes populist thinking and how morality and emotions are intertwined in it using mixed methods. She is especially interested in the questions of climate, gender, and immigration.
Prof. Xenia Chryssochoou obtained degrees in Psychology from the University of Athens and the University Rene Descartes-Paris V (PhD 1996). She has worked at different Universities in France, Switzerland and the United Kingdom before moving in 2004 at Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences where she is currently Professor of Social and Political Psychology and Director of the Social and Political Psychology lab. Her research interests concern the social psychological aspects of identity construction in liberal societies, issues of migration and multiculturalism and political participation. She has written extensively scientific papers and books and she has directed special issues and collective books on these subjects. She is a member of many international scientific societies and she has been a member of the Executive Committee and Secretary of the European Association of Social Psychology. She is currently vice-President of the Scientific Council of the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation (www.elidek.gr).
Nikos Kalampalikis is a Full Professor of social psychology, University Lyon 2 (France). His research interest and publications fit into the field of social thinking, especially social representations in a sociogenetic perspective (anchoring, mythical thought, beliefs, names, gift) through mixed methods. These past few years, different themes have raised his interest (for ex : national identity, political thought, justice, kinship and gift, health), inspired mainly by research projects and contracts. He is particularly interested in language from a communication point of view and textual analysis. A part of his publications also deals with social psychology history building and narrative.
Christian Staerklé, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland
Myrtho Droumpali is a PhD candidate from Panteion University of Social and Political Studies in Athens, Greece. Within the Populism Project Droumpali is conducting the research for her thesis in which she seeks to investigate the main characteristics of populism. More specifically in this research her role is to explore populist communication in the contemporary Greek context and to provide further insight regarding the ways that a populist message can attract and mobilize supporters. She approaches populist discourse from the perspective of three actors: political parties/politicians, media and citizens. Leaning on the theory of social representations, affective-discursive approach and social identity approaches she aims to examine the ways in which populist attraction is entangled with shared representations, emotions and group memberships. In general her research interests are based on dimensions of Social and Political Psychology like social change, collective action, collective emotions and social influence.
Ioannis Ntotsikas studied political science at the University of Athens (BA) and social psychology at the London School of Economics (MSc). He is a PhD candidate in Psychology and a member of the Social and Political Psychology Lab at Panteion University, focusing on the social representations of history and national identity in Greece. As a part of the Populist Attraction team he delves into the current discourses around populism in Greece through said representations, affective politics, and identity construction processes. His academic interests also extend to the fields of political philosophy, social theory and philosophy of history.
I am a PhD student at the University of Lausanne and I am collaborating on the Mobilising Populism project since November 2021. My main contribution to the study is to collect data in Switzerland and in France. During my academic journey, I have focused my interest on several concepts such as social desirability, negotiation or authoritarianism. In the framework of my thesis, I further explore some themes related to political psychology mainly through qualitative tools and methods (interviews, ethnographic research).