Alberto López Ortega

Political Scientist, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

I am a postdoctoral researcher in Political Science at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Starting Fall 2024, I will be the Ramón Areces Fellow and Visiting Scholar for 2024-2025 at the Center of European Studies in Harvard University.

I specialize in comparative politics, electoral behavior, representation, and public opinion. I co-direct the electoral prediction market Predilect and co-lead WG1 at COST Action LGBTI+ Social and Economic (in)equalities (CA19103). Previously, I earned my Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Zurich.

My research focuses on two key and interconnected challenges that modern democracies face: identity-based polarization and the erosion of sociocultural attitudes, particularly concerning LGBTQ+ perspectives, towards liberal democracy. I have also specialized in understanding the discrimination patterns against LGBTQ+ and other minority political candidates in the European context. My methodological expertise is in quantitative techniques, with a specific emphasis on experimental survey methods.

selected publications

The war on flags: The opposition to state-sponsored LGBTQ+ symbols

Alberto López Ortega

Research & Politics, 2024

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Negativity against LGBTQ+ and gender equality symbols is escalating across Western European countries, including those at the forefront of sexual modernism. Drawing on data from Spain, this paper theorizes and finds that state-sponsored LGBTQ+ symbols receive significantly more negativity than other aspects of LGBTQ+ issues related to general and specific attitudes toward formal rights. The negativity is primarily explained by support for Vox, a radical right-wing party, and age. The study provides insights into the complexities of public opinion surrounding LGBTQ+ symbols, offering a nuanced understanding of the challenges faced by the LGBTQ+ community in terms of acceptance and visibility. Furthermore, it highlights the influence of political affiliations and generational factors in shaping these attitudes.
@article{lopezortega2024war, title = {The war on flags: The opposition to state-sponsored LGBTQ+ symbols}, author = {L{\'o}pez Ortega, Alberto}, journal = {Research \& Politics}, volume = {11}, number = {1}, year = {2024}, publisher = {Sage Publications}, }
Instrumentally inclusive: the political psychology of homonationalism

Stuart J Turnbull-Dugarte , and Alberto López Ortega

American Political Science Review, 2023

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Can nativist attitudes condition support for LGBT+ rights? The sustained advance in pro-LGBT+ attitudes in the West often contrasts with the greening of anti-immigrant sentiment propagated by nativist supply-side actors. We argue that these parallel trends are causally connected, theorizing that exposure to sexually conservative ethnic out-groups can provoke an instrumental increase in LGBT+ inclusion, particularly among those hostile toward immigration. Leveraging experiments in Britain and Spain, we provide causal evidence that citizens strategically liberalize their levels of support for LGBT+ rights when opponents of these measures are from the ethnic out-group. In a context where sexuality-based liberalism is nationalized, increasing tolerance toward LGBT+ citizens is driven by a desire among nativist citizens to socially disidentify from those out-groups perceived as inimical to these nationalized norms. Our analyses provide a critical interpretation of positive trends in LGBT+ tolerance with instrumental liberalism masking lower rates of genuine shifts in LGBT+ inclusion.
@article{turnbull2023instrumentally, title = {Instrumentally inclusive: the political psychology of homonationalism}, author = {Turnbull-Dugarte, Stuart J and L{\'o}pez Ortega, Alberto}, journal = {American Political Science Review}, pages = {1--19}, year = {2023}, publisher = {Cambridge University Press}, }