Zsofia Bocskay

Zsofia Bocskay is a postdoctoral researcher at the CEU Democracy Institute and a member of the Research Group on De- and Re-Democratization. She holds a PhD in Political Science from Koç University, Istanbul. Her research focuses on political communication in autocratizing contexts, with a particular emphasis on party competition, including agenda-setting, populist appeals, and negative campaigning.

Her doctoral work examined the 2019 municipal elections in Istanbul and Budapest, analysing how opposition parties used strategic communication to challenge entrenched incumbents. More broadly, her research explores the interplay between parties, voter behaviour, and media systems in electoral autocracies, with a particular interest in local elections.

Methodologically, she specialises in time-series analysis and has extensive experience in content analysis, using both qualitative and quantitative approaches, including AI-assisted methods.

Her work has been published in The International Journal of Press/Politics and the Journal of Politics in Latin America.