H! I am Chiara Vargiu
I am an Assistant Professor in Political Communication at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. I hold a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Lausanne and I have experience as a postdoctoral researcher at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR).
In my research, I study political conflict through the lenses of political communication and political psychology. I am particularly interested in how people perceive, evaluate, and react to hostile communication (e.g., negativity, incivility) in politics, why they sometimes find it acceptable, and with what consequences for democratic functioning.
My work has been published in journals such as Political Psychology, The Journal of Politics, Public Opinion Quarterly, and the International Journal of Communication. I am a co-author of the book The Psychology of Attack Politics: Perceptions, Evaluations, and Effects (with Alessandro Nai and Lukas P. Otto; Routledge, 2025). You can find all my published work here and more about my ongoing projects here.
My Research
My research agenda is structured around three interconnected areas: (i) how citizens perceive and evaluate hostile communication in politics, (ii) the psychological and social mechanisms that drive support for political violence, and (iii) how elite rhetoric shapes conflict in democratic societies. I employ experimental and observational methods across national and cross-national settings.
Perceptions and Evaluations of Elite Incivility
I approach political incivility as a subjective and context-dependent perception, shaped by individuals' political attitudes and psychological predispositions, as well as the society they live in (e.g., its cultural norms, political climate, and institutional structures). My research in this area asks: When do citizens perceive political communication as uncivil? When do they tolerate, or even appreciate incivility in politics?
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Psychological and Social Antecedents of Support for Political Violence
I am interested in how citizens come to view violence as a legitimate form of political action, especially in democratic contexts. I investigate how individual predispositions toward aggressiveness and partisan identities interact with situational triggers - e.g., perceived injustice, status threat, or emotionally charged events - to legitimize violence and erode democratic norms.
The Role of Elite Rhetoric in Shaping Political Conflict
My work in this area investigates how hostile rhetoric from political elites can (de)mobilize, divide, and radicalize the public. I focus especially on the impact of hostile or aggressive forms of campaign behavior, and how citizens respond to these strategies based on their partisan identities, as well as their individual predispositions towards conflict.