Åsa von Schoultz, Professor

Curriculum vitae

Professor Åsa von Schoultz (née Bengtsson) holds the Swedish Chair in Political Science at the University of Helsinki since 2017. Her research revolves around political behavior and public opinion. She is particularly interested in gendered patterns of political selection, electoral competition within parties, and of citizens’ and elites’ perceptions of democratic processes. Other fields of interest are voting behavior, political participation and political behavior of minorities and of mobile citizens. 

von Schoultz has extensive experience of survey research among citizens and political elites. She is the director of the University of Helsinki Citizen Barometer and of the Finnish National Election Study (FNES) (2021-2025), and serves as chair of the Consortium for National Election Studies (CNES). von Schoultz is also a member of the Module 7 planning committee of the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) (2023-2027) and of the Scientific Advisory Board of the European Social Survey (ESS) (2024-2027). 

Since 2023 she serves as chair of The Society of Swedish Literature in Finland (SLS), a scholarly society operating in the fields of archives, research, publishing and wealth management. She also serves as a board member of Riksbankens jubileumsfond (RJ)

Larger research projects:

- The resilience of liberal democracy in Finland (RESLIDE), funded by the The Strategic Research Council (SRC) 2024-2027. 

- The Finnish National Election Study (FNES), funded by the Minstry of Justice.

- Intraparty competition: The neglected dimension of electoral competion (IntraComp), funded by the Academy of Finland for the period 2018-2023. 

- Mobile EU Electorates and democratic participation (MOBILEU), funded by the European Commission (Rights, Equality and Citizenship Programme) for the period 2021-2023.

- Is local democracy facing a recruitment crisis (DemRek), funded by The Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland for the period 2021-2025.