Noam Gidron

I am an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science and the Joint Program in Politics, Philosophy and Economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. My research interests lie at the intersection of political behavior and political sociology, with a substantive focus on populism, polarization and democratic backsliding. 

In 2016 I received my PhD from the Department of Government at Harvard University. Prior to joining the Hebrew University, I was a fellow at the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance at Princeton University. 

While grounded in comparative politics, my research draws on theoretical insights and empirical strategies from across disciplines, including economics and sociology. I rely on a diverse methodological toolkit, including online and field experiments, surveys, and text analysis. Geographically, my research focuses on Western democracies, with an emphasis on Israeli politics and society. My research has been published in Cambridge University Press and in leading journals such as the American Political Science Review, British Journal of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Annual Review of Political Science, Journal of Politics, British Journal of Sociology, Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, and Social Forces. My research has been discussed in multiple Israeli media outlets as well as in The Economist, the Washington Post, the BBC, and the New York Times.

In 2023 I was awarded a European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant for the project “How Varieties of Nationalism Shape our Polarized Politics” (2024-2028). My research has also been supported by the Israel Science Foundation.

Books

Gidron, Noam, James Adams and Will Horne

2020. American Affective Polarization in Comparative Perspective. Cambridge University Press (Cambridge Elements in American Politics series).

Articles

Panievsky, Ayala, Yossi David Noam Gidron and Lior Sheffer. Forthcoming. Imagined Journalists: New Framework for Studying Media-Audiences Relationship in Populist Times. The International Journal of Press/Politics.

Gidron, Noam and Lior Sheffer. Forthcoming. Differentiating the Sources of PostElection Partisan Affect Warming. European Journal of Political Research.

Hudde, Ansgar, Will Horne, James Adams and Noam Gidron. Forthcoming. How Warm Are Political Interactions? A New Measure of Affective Fractionalization. PLOS One.

Tichelbaecker, Thomas, Noam Gidron, Will Horne and James Adams. 2023. What do we measure when we measure affective polarization across countries? Public Opinion Quarterly. 87(3): 803-815.

Karell, Daniel, Michael Freedman and Noam Gidron. 2023. Analyzing Text and Images in Digital Communication: The Case of Securitization in American White Supremacist Online Discourse. Socius. 9: 1-16.

Gidron, Noam. 2023. Why Israeli Democracy is in Crisis. Journal of Democracy. 34(3): 33-45.

Gidron, Noam, James Adams and Will Horne. 2023. Who Dislikes Whom? Affective polarization between Pairs of Parties in Western Democracies. British Journal of Political Science. 53(3): 997–1015.

Adams, James, David Bracken, Noam Gidron, Will Horne, Diana Z. O’Brien and Kaitlin Senk. 2023. ”Can’t We All Just Get Along? How Women MPs Can Ameliorate Affective Polarization in Western Publics.” American Political Science Review. 117(1): 318-324.

Horne, Will, James Adams and Noam Gidron. 2023. The Way We Were: How Histories of Co-Governance Alleviate Partisan Hostility. Comparative Political Studies. 56(3): 299–325.

Gidron, Noam, Lior Sheffer and Guy Mor. 2022. Validating the Feeling Thermometer as a Measure of Partisan Affect in Multi-Party Systems. Electoral Studies. 80: 102542.

Gidron, Noam, Lior Sheffer and Guy Mor. 2022. The Israel Polarization Panel Dataset, 2019–2021. Electoral Studies. 80: 102512.

Barak-Corren, Netta, Noam Gidron and Yuval Feldman. 2022. Majority Nationalism Laws and the Equal Citizenship of Minorities: Experimental, Panel, and Cross-Sectional Evidence from Israel. Journal of Legal Studies. 51(2): 371-401.

Fuller, Samuel, Will Horne, James Adams and Noam Gidron. 2022. Populism and the Affective Partisan Space in Eight European Publics: Evidence from a Cross-National Survey. Frontiers in Political Science. 4:984238.

Superti, Chiara and Noam Gidron. 2022. Too Old to Forget: The Dynamics of Political Trust among Immigrants. Political Studies. 70(3): 624-654.

Gidron, Noam. 2022. Many Ways to be Right: Cross-pressured Voters in Western Europe. British Journal of Political Science. 52(1), 146-161.

Gidron, Noam and Peter A. Hall. 2020. Populism as a Problem of Social Integration. Comparative Political Studies. 53(7): 1027-1059.

Gidron, Noam and Jonathan Mijs. 2019. Do Changes in Material Circumstances Drive Support for Populist Radical Parties? Panel Data Evidence from The Netherlands During the Great Recession, 2007–2015. European Sociological Review. 35(5): 637-650.

Gidron, Noam and Daniel Ziblatt. 2019. Center-Right Parties in Advanced Democracies. Annual Review of Political Science. 22:17-35.

Enos, Ryan and Noam Gidron. 2018. Exclusion and Cooperation in Diverse Societies: Experimental Evidence from Israel. American Political Science Review. 112(3):742-757.

Barak-Corren, Netta, Yuval Feldman and Noam Gidron. 2018. The Provocative Effect of Law: Majority Nationalism and Minority Discrimination. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies. 15(4):951-986.

Gidron, Noam and Peter A. Hall. 2017. The Politics of Social Status: Economic and Cultural Roots of the Populist Right. British Journal of Sociology. 68:57-84.

Enos, Ryan and Noam Gidron. 2016. Intergroup Behavioral Strategies as Contextually Determined: Experimental Evidence from Israel. The Journal of Politics. 78(3):851– 867.

Bonikowski, Bart and Noam Gidron. 2016. The Populist Style in American Politics: Presidential Campaign Discourse, 1952-1996. Social Forces. 94(4):1593–1621.

Media

Articles I wrote:

Israel’s horrible year started long before October 7

One year into Netanyahu’s latest tenure, Israel’s state and society are truly weakened.

Americans hate the ‘other side’ in politics. But so do Europeans.

That dislike is becoming worse in the United States faster than elsewhere.

Why Partisan Hostility Won’t End With Trump

The U.S. political system is designed for demonization and gridlock. Countries with proportional representation and parliamentary ...

The left shouldn’t fear nationalism. It should embrace it.

National solidarity is an old, powerful theme on the left — one it shuns at its peril.

Articles discussing my research (English):

The Resentment That Never Sleeps

Rising anxiety over declining social status tells us a lot about how we got here and where we’re going.

Trump Is Trying to Bend Reality to His Will

Can his aggressive version of ethnonationalist populism prevail in 2020? The answer is not obvious.

The power of populists

When elites appear ineffective, voters give radicals a chance

Articles discussing my research (Hebrew):

Podcasts:

Youtube clips: