Margit Tavits

Professor of Political Science

Dr. William Taussig Professor in Arts & Sciences

research interests:

Comparative Politics
Parties and Elections
Political Institutions
Democracy
Corruption
European Politics
Post-Communist Politics

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contact info:

Email: tavits@wustl.edu
Office: Seigle 234A

office hours:

On Sabbatical During the 2023-24 Academic Year

mailing address:

Washington University
MSC 1063-228-207
One Brookings Drive
St. Louis, MO 63130-4899

Professor Tavits is a comparativist who studies party politics and political behavior.

Tavits specializes in comparative politics and her research interests are relatively broad: she has studied various issues related to political parties, political institutions, corruption, post-communist politics, and gender equality. While she continues to be interested in these topics, her ongoing research extends the list even further and considers the effects of wartime violence on post-war politics, inter-ethnic cooperation, and women's representation. Some of her most exciting new research ventures into an uncharted territory in political science is exploring how the language we speak affects how we think about politically relevant issues such as gender and LGBTQ+ equality, environmental policy, and ethnic divisions. Tavits served as department chair from July 2020 to June 2023.

in the news:

1.23.24

Margit Tavits's Upcoming Book: "Counter-Stereotypes and Attitudes Toward Gender and LGBTQ Equality"

11.30.23

Skeletal Records and Gender Bias

11.1.23

Margit Tavits in Journal of Experimental Political Science, now open access

10.30.23

TRIADS receives $330,000 Carnegie Corporation grant to study online populist rhetoric

Clarity of Responsibility, Accountability, and Corruption

By Leslie A. Schwindt-Bayer and Margit Tavits

Corruption is a significant problem for democracies throughout the world. Even the most democratic countries constantly face the threat of corruption and the consequences of it at the polls. Why are some governments more corrupt than others, even after considering cultural, social, and political characteristics? In Clarity of Responsibility, Accountability, and Corruption, the authors argue that clarity of responsibility is critical for reducing corruption in democracies. The authors provide a number of empirical tests of this argument, including a cross-national time-series statistical analysis to show that the higher the level of clarity the lower the perceived corruption levels. Using survey and experimental data, the authors show that clarity causes voters to punish incumbents for corruption. Preliminary tests further indicate that elites respond to these electoral incentives and are more likely to combat corruption when clarity is high.

Presidents with Prime Ministers: Do Direct Elections Matter?

By Margit Tavits

This book is about presidents in parliamentary systems. One commonly recurring political debate within parliamentary systems is over whether or not the public should directly elect the head of state. Despite the importance of this topic in practical politics, political scientists have offered little empirical evidence yet made bold assumptions about the consequences of popular elections for heads of state. A common argument is that direct elections enhance presidents' legitimacy thereby increasing their activism and encouraging authoritarian tendencies. Another popular assumption is that direct presidential elections are more heavily contested and partisan, polarizing, and dividing political elites and the electorate. Proponents of direct elections argue that such elections will help decrease voter alienation and apathy. This book challenges the conventional wisdom. Using both quantitative and qualitative empirical evidence from democratic systems across the world, this book demonstrates that compared to indirect selection methods, direct elections do not yield more active and contentious presidents, do not polarize political elites or society, and do not remedy political apathy. Rather, presidential activism in both “semi-presidential” and “pure parliamentary” systems is shaped by political opportunity framework—the institutional strength and partisan composition of both parliament and government. Further, because holding the presidency provides parties with an electoral asset, direct and indirect presidential elections can be equally contentious and polarizing. Last, but not least, rather than decreasing apathy, direct election is associated with increased voter fatigue and decreased turnout in parliamentary elections by about seven percentage points.

Voicing Politics: How Language Shapes Public Opinion

By Efrén Pérez and Margit Tavits

Voicing Politics brings together the latest findings from psychology and political science to reveal how the linguistic peculiarities of different languages can have meaningful consequences for political attitudes and beliefs around the world. Efrén Pérez and Margit Tavits demonstrate that different languages can make mental content more or less accessible and thereby shift political opinions and preferences in predictable directions. They rigorously test this hypothesis using carefully crafted experiments and rich cross-national survey data, showing how language shapes mass opinion in domains such as gender equality, LGBTQ rights, environmental conservation, ethnic relations, and candidate evaluations.

Voicing Politics traces how these patterns emerge in polities spanning the globe, shedding essential light on how simple linguistic quirks can affect our political views. This incisive book calls on scholars of political behavior to take linguistic nuances more seriously and charts new directions for researchers across diverse fields. It explains how a stronger grasp of linguistic effects on political cognition can help us better understand how people form political attitudes and why political outcomes vary across nations and regions.

Post-Communist Democracies and Party Organization

By Margit Tavits

Scholars of post-communist politics often argue that parties in new democracies lack strong organizations - sizable membership, local presence, and professional management - because they don't need them to win elections and they may hinder a party's flexibility and efficiency in office. Post-Communist Democracies and Party Organization explains why some political parties are better able than others to establish themselves in new democracies and why some excel at staying unified in parliament, whereas others remain dominated by individuals

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