Dr Johan A. Elkink - Biography
Jos Elkink works as Lecturer in Social Research Methods for the Social Sciences at SPIRe and the College of Human Sciences Graduate School since September 2007. Previous, he was a pre-doctoral fellow at the Harvard-MIT Data Center of the Institute of Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University, where he consulted students and staff on the use of quantitative methods and software in their research.
Jos Elkink's PhD research project, at Trinity College Dublin, concerns the development of an agent-based model of the world-wide diffusion of democracy, combining insights from comparative politics, transition politics, international relations, and recent developments in computational research methods. The study provides insights in possible explanations why countries that are surrounded by democracies have a higher probability of making a transition to democracy themselves. His MA thesis, at Leiden University, similarly related to the diffusion of democracy, in this case across the subnational regions of the Russian Federation.
Currently, he is involved in research concerning the estimation, interpretation and presentation of spatial econometric models with discrete dependent variables. While spatial correlations are common in studies of policy diffusion, regime transitions, voting behaviour, etc., little attention has thus far been paid to the resulting complications in statistical estimation, in particular when the dependent variable is dichotomous in nature.
His research interests include quantitative research methods, research methods for the social sciences in general, computational approaches, and democratization studies.
UCD Researcher's Profile