Academic Profile

People Feature

Leonardo Carella

Postdoctoral Prize Research Fellow in Politics

My research interests fall within the domain of comparative democratic politics, and can be broadly classified into two subfields. 

The first is the study of electoral institutions and their relationship to democratic outcomes. In my doctoral thesis, I investigated across three separate articles the relationship between features of electoral systems and descriptive representation, legislator behaviour and intra-party competition.

The second is political sociology, with a particular focus on education and occupation as political cleavages. My current research aims to investigate how the expansion of tertiary education affected the social stratification of political values through selection and sorting mechanisms, as well as the downstream effects of these social processes on political cleavages and competition.

In my research, I employ quantitative methods, and I have a keen interest in the use of statistical techniques for social measurement.

I joined Nuffield College in October 2022, following a DPhil in Politics at Mansfield College, Oxford, an MPhil in European Politics at St. Antony's College, Oxford and a Bachelor's Degree in Politics and International Relations at University of Manchester. 

 
Leonardo Carella

Publications

Carella, L. and Eggers, R. (2023) ‘Electoral Systems and Geographic Representation, British Journal of Political Science.

Carella, L. (2022) ‘The British Elections of 2019 : Not Quite What you Read in the Press’, The Political Quarterly

Carella, L. and Ford, R. (2020) ‘The Status Stratification of Radical Right Support: Reconsidering the Occupational Profile of UKIP’s Electorate’, Electoral Studies.

Cox, E. Raikes, L. and Carella, L. (2016) ‘The state of the North 2016: Building northern resilience in an era of global uncertainty’, IPPR.