Aksel Sundström

Welcome! I am an Associate Professor and senior lecturer at the Department of Political Science, University of Gothenburg. I have previously held visiting positions at Harvard University and the University of Oxford.

I am the PI for Quality of Government (QoG) Data, where I work with a fantastic team to provide data on corruption and societal indicators to the public sphere.

Recently, I was awarded an ERC Starting Grant, which will fund the project Female Leaders and African Droughts (Fem-LEAD).

My research agenda focuses on comparative politics with two substantive research interests: 1) the study of environmental politics, especially in low-income countries, and 2) the study of political representation, focusing on the absence of women and youth in political institutions. 

My work is published in a range of international outlets. Examples of recent outputs are:

• Youth without Representation, book with Daniel Stockemer, the University of Michigan Press, 2022. It is open access and free to download.
• Article on young adults’ under-representation in the U.S. House of Representatives, in Electoral Studies (open access).
• Article on attitudes to female leaders in Africa, in Public Opinion Quarterly (open access).
• Article on community involvement in anti-poaching activities, in World Development (open access).

You can contact me at aksel.sundstrom@pol.gu.se

See my CV for more details, or visit my Google Scholar profile.