I work at the intersection of political behavior, race and ethnic politics, and public policy. Broadly, I research the political consequences of identity-based differences -- those rooted in migration status, race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexuality, and national origin. In my work, I ask: when and why identity-based differences translate into grievances, how these grievances shape public opinion and political behavior, and which interventions can effectively remedy them. 

Please feel free to reach out for copies of any working papers.

Cambridge Elements: 

Hlatky, Roman. Kremlin-Linked Disinformation, Ideology, and Public Opinion in Central Europe. Cambridge University Press: Elements in Politics and Society from Central Europe to Central Asia.  

• In Central and Eastern Europe, disinformation threatens democratic stability, inflames ideological divides, and weakens Western geopolitical commitments. Drawing on cross-national analyses, as well as in-depth studies of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, this Element analyzes: the relationship between ideological polarization and disinformation supply; the challenges of building anti-disinformation efforts; individual-level demand for disinformation; and the effects of disinformation on public opinion. Ideological polarization over sociocultural issues predicts disinformation supply, and sociocultural conservatives with anti-Western views constitute a disinformation-susceptible audience that struggles to distinguish between false and true narratives. Elite-level divisions over the threat posed by disinformation exacerbate these dynamics, hampering efforts to build disinformation resilience. However, disinformation largely fails to persuade. Amongst most individuals, attitudinal backlash is more common. Disinformation does not win over hearts and minds; rather, its appeal reflects the salience of contentious issues that have emerged as a result of wider political realignments.
  

Liu, Amy H., Roman Hlatky, Keith Chew, Eoin Power, Sam Selsky, Betty Compton, Meiying Xu. 2025. Gender, Ethnicity, and Intersectionality in Cabinets: Asia and Europe in Comparative Perspective.  Cambridge University Press: Elements in Gender and Politics. 

• What explains the representation of ethnic minorities and women in European governments? In this Cambridge Elements monograph, we consider two markers of group identity across regime types: ethnicity and gender. We provide a theoretical framework. By focusing on how these identities crosscut, we argue that diversity increases when men from the hegemon ethnic group are politically constrained and must coopt an underrepresented group. The choice is whether to coopt ethnic minorities or women. However, beyond a certain threshold, the multiple, competing needs of the two underrepresented groups incentivize the hegemon ethnic men to coopt ethnic minorities and women – i.e., the double-underrepresented. To test our argument, we focus on the cabinet – the most prestigious institutional body that exists in every regime – using a novel database. This monograph highlights how to study representation, diversity, and intersectionality in political science.​

​Peer-Reviewed Publications:

Hlatky, Roman. Online First. "State Capacity, Refugee Reception, and Attitudes towards Refugees". Comparative Political Studies. 

• What explains opposition to refugees? Aside from cultural, economic, and safety-related threats, existing research suggests that individuals are less tolerant when they think their state lacks the capacity to control external borders. Focusing solely on external borders, however, overlooks another dimension of migration management: reception and integration. I argue that perceptions of a state’s refugee reception capacity shape refugee-related attitudes. Three studies – focusing on Ukrainian refugees in Central and Eastern Europe – provide evidence. Study 1 analyzes opposition to Ukrainian refugees and the reception programs intended to benefit them. Study 2, a design-based analysis, shows that expanding a state’s capacity to manage refugee reception causes individuals to consider refugees less of a problem. Study 3, a pre-registered survey experiment, replicates this finding and investigates whether effects extend beyond problem perception. Findings suggest that investing in effective refugee reception may improve the lives of refugees while also reducing public opposition.

Findor, Andrej, Kristína Kironská, Roman Hlatky, Ondrej Buchel,  Matej Hruška, Amy H. Liu. Online First. "Ignoring Gender Compromises the Comparability of Cross-Cultural Survey Research". Public Opinion Quarterly. 

• Survey measures of intergroup attitudes may not necessarily be comparable across countries. Androcentric bias—the propensity to position men as the universal standard—is more likely to arise among speakers of grammatically gendered languages than among speakers of languages without grammatical gender. When combined with outgroup male target bias—the tendency to evaluate outgroup men more negatively than outgroup women—androcentric bias may distort cross-national comparisons of survey measures across different language types. To evaluate, we conducted survey experiments with over 19,500 participants from 13 European countries. We randomly assigned participants to evaluate: (a) masculine or gender-neutral outgroup labels, or (b) gender-inclusive alternatives. On average, gender-inclusive labels evoked more favorable evaluations. Importantly, these positive effects were more consistently present in grammatically gendered languages. Our findings highlight potential challenges to measurement validity posed by variations in the grammatical embedding of gender across languages. Using gender-inclusive language improves measurement and may serve as a first step toward bolstering cross-national comparability.

Hlatky, Roman, Amy H. Liu, Ariel Pitre Young, Yinlong Li. 2026. "Minority Representation versus Majority Resentment: Explaining Radical-Right Electoral Success. European Journal of Political Research, 65(1), 263-285.

• The radical right succeeds when minorities challenge the societal standing of majorities. In Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), research often focuses on the political gains of ethnic minorities. We build on this work by differentiating among (1) types of representation; (2) minority mobilization versus ally advocacy; and (3) politically mobilized versus socially marginalized ethnic minorities. First, we introduce a novel measure of representation based on the power, influence, and prestige afforded to ethnic minorities at the executive (cabinet) level. Second, we evaluate whether legislative descriptive representation, ethnic minority party coalition participation, and ethnic minority cabinet-level prestige are associated with radical-right aggregate electoral success and individual-level radical-right vote choice. Cabinet-level prestige consistently predicts radical-right success; descriptive representation and coalition participation have less robust associations. Third, experiments in Romania and Slovakia highlight the mechanism, underscoring that representation – namely the substantive representation of politically mobilized minorities – causes resentment among ethnic majorities. In sum, majority-minority relations continue to structure CEE electoral politics, and the politicization of minority gains remains a viable strategy for mobilizing radical-right support.
  

Findor, Andrej, Roman Hlatky, Kristína Kironská, Matej Hruška. Forthcoming. "Anti-Muslim Bias in Foreign Policy Attitudes: Experimental Evidence From 13 European Countries". British Journal of Political Science, 55, e41. 

• Intergroup attitudes and identity ties can shape foreign policy preferences. Anti-Muslim bias is particularly salient in the USA and the UK, but little work assesses whether this bias generalizes to other countries. We evaluate the extent of anti-Muslim bias in foreign policy attitudes through harmonized survey experiments in thirteen European countries (N=19,673). Experimental vignettes present factual reports of religious persecution by China, counter-stereotypically depicting Muslims as victims. We find evidence of anti-Muslim bias. Participants are less opposed to persecution and less likely to support intervention when Muslims, as opposed to other religious groups, are persecuted. However, this bias is not present in all countries. Exploratory analyses underscore that pre-existing intergroup attitudes and shared group identity moderate how group-based evaluations shape foreign policy attitudes. We provide extensive cross-national evidence that anti-Muslim bias is country-specific and that social identity ties and intergroup attitudes influence foreign policy preferences.

​Hlatky, Roman, Oľga Gyárfášová. 2025. "Solving the Strategic Dilemma of Social Democracy: Lessons from Slovakia." Electoral Studies, 95, 1-12.  

• The declining fortunes of European social democracy have been the subject of much attention. A particularly contested explanation for how to remedy the decline concerns whether conservative shifts on sociocultural and transnational issues are helpful or harmful at the ballot box. In contrast, we focus on an underexplored adaptation strategy: the split of social democracy along the sociocultural cleavage. We analyze the Slovak case where a successful, dominant social democratic party, Smer-SD, divided. One part of the divide took radical, conservative stances on sociocultural and geopolitical issues, while the other part took moderate positions. Analyzing over 30 public opinion polls, we show that the split and the parties’ subsequent ideological differentiation led to electoral success. Radicalization attracted conservative former radical-right voters; moderation ensured the support of the more liberal middle class. Situating Slovakia in the wider European context, we: (1) suggest that the salience of the sociocultural cleavage has strengthened the appeal of a nationalist left programmatic direction; (2) explore why moderate social democracy succeeded in Slovakia but failed elsewhere; and confirm previous findings on (3) the importance of strong leadership and a large membership base for splinter party success and (4) voter responsiveness to parties' ideological and programmatic shifts. More generally, the Slovak case illustrates that party splits are both a consequence of and an effective response to the strategic dilemma of social democracy. 

Gyárfášová, Oľga, Roman Hlatky, Martin Slosiarik. Forthcoming.  "Mobile voters: Patterns of electoral volatility in Slovakia." Czech Journal of Political Science (special issue on 2023 Slovak election). 

• Electoral volatility is a perennial feature of Slovak general elections. Furthermore, volatility has increased over time, suggesting party system stabilization is unlikely. As the vicious cycle of new party emergence continues, high volatility complicates the attribution of responsibility, and thus accountability. The 2023 early general election found Slovakia in a very precarious political and social situation – trust in political institutions was historically low and public sentiment about future prospects was pessimistic. Focusing on this election, and using aggregate election results as well as exit poll data, this study analyses: (1) trends in volatility; (2) dynamics of volatility within and between two major political blocs; (3) individual vote switching between consecutive elections; (4) the vote choice of remobilized former non-voters; and (5) the motivations that underpin vote switching. The findings indicate that although some voters have made ideological commitments to certain political parties and are therefore loyal between elections, large parts of the electorate remain ‘floating voters’, dissatisfied with political parties generally. As such, volatility is at an all time high and may increase in future elections.

Çat, Olgahan, Jiseon Chang, Roman Hlatky, Huimin Li, Daniel Nielson. 2024 "A Field Experiment Using Social Media Ads to Encourage COVID-19 Vaccination." PNAS Nexus, 3(8). 

• ​Behavioral nudges in Facebook ads encouraged Covid-19 vaccine signup across six diverse countries. The ads reached nearly 14 million people and, consequently, many thousands took the concrete step of navigating to governments' vaccine signup sites. However, none of the treatment ads caused significantly more vaccine signup than placebo across all countries. Critically, reporting the descriptive norm that 87 percent of people worldwide had either been vaccinated or planned vaccination---social proof---did not meaningfully increase vaccine signup in any country and significantly backfired in South Africa and Taiwan. This result contradicts prominent prior findings. A charge to “protect lives in your family” significantly outperformed placebo in Brazil and Taiwan but saw mixed effects elsewhere. A message noting that vaccination significantly reduces hospitalization risk significantly increased signup in Brazil, Taiwan, and Turkey, had no significant effects in South Africa or Russia, and significantly backfired in the United States. Such heterogeneity was the the hallmark of the study: some messages saw significant treatment effects in some countries but failed in others. No nudge outperformed any other condition in Russia, a location of high vaccine skepticism. In all, widely touted behavioral nudges often fail to promote vaccine uptake and appear to be highly moderated by cultural context.

Overos, Henry, Roman Hlatky, Ojaswhi Pathak, Harriet Gowers. Jordan Gouws-Dewer,  Katie Smith, Keith Padraic Chew, Jóhanna Birnir, Amy H. Liu. 2024 "Coding with the machines: machine-assisted coding of rare event data." PNAS Nexus, 3(5) pgae 165. 

• While machine coding of data has dramatically advanced in recent years, the literature raises significant concerns about validation of LLM classification showing, for example, that reliability varies greatly by prompt and temperature tuning, across subject areas and tasks—especially in “zero-shot” applications. This paper contributes to the discussion of validation in several different ways. To test the relative performance of supervised and semi-supervised algorithms when coding political data, we compare three models’ performances to each other over multiple iterations for each model and to trained expert coding of data. We also examine changes in performance resulting from prompt engineering and pre-processing of source data. To ameliorate concerns regarding LLM’s pre-training on test data, we assess performance by updating an existing dataset beyond what is publicly available. Overall, we find that only GPT-4 approaches trained expert coders when coding contexts familiar to human coders and codes more consistently across contexts. We conclude by discussing some benefits and drawbacks of machine coding moving forward.

Hlatky, Roman and Joshua Landry. 2024. "Ethnicity and Coalition Building in Interstate War." Conflict Management and Peace Science.

• Why do military coalitions form during international crises? We argue ethnically-motivated domestic pressure can incentivize leaders to support co-ethnics via coalition formation during international crises. When a leader relies on the continued support of a single ethnic group to retain office, she may face domestic pressure to support foreign co-ethnics experiencing international crises. To improve the bargaining outcomes of co-ethnic governments during international crises, a leader can provide military support, i.e. form a military coalition, to bolster her domestic political position. However, institutional constraints on the executive may limit a leader's ability to respond to ethnically-motivated domestic pressure. Using data on 257 international crises from 1949-2001, we find robust evidence for the conditional relationship between co-ethnicity, the domestic political salience of ethnicity, and executive constraints on the likelihood of military coalition formation.

Findor, Andrej, Matej Hruška, Roman Hlatky, Alexa Dvorská, Tomáš Hrustić, Zuzana Bošelová, Ondrej Buchel. 2024. "Bolstering Policy Support for Disadvantaged Groups Through Humanization." Social Psychological and Personality Science, 15(2), 111-124.

• Cooley et al. and Hodson and Doucher show that individuals, individuals within groups, and groups evoke different levels of perceived humanity, and that these differences affect sympathy and willingness to help. In three preregistered experiments, we successfully replicate these findings in a different cultural context (Slovakia). We then test whether manipulating these depictions also affects support for policies that benefit the target. We focus on a disadvantaged ethnic minority (the Roma). Finally, we investigate whether internal (under the beneficiary’s control) versus external attribution (outside of the beneficiary’s control) is a mitigating factor. We confirm individuals and group-compositions evoke higher levels of policy support than groups through increases in perceived humanity. However, this relationship only holds under conditions of external attribution. To humanize disadvantaged groups and bolster policy support, advocates should center their communicative messages around individuals rather than unitary groups and avoid stereotype-enforcing internal attributions.

Hlatky, Roman. 2024. "The Politicization of European Integration and Support for Restrictive Migration Policies."  European Union Politics, 24(4), 1-24. 

• Why do individuals in Central and Eastern Europe support parties and candidates that hold restrictive positions on migration? I argue that the mobilization of public opinion against the European integration of external migration management is a cause. To test, I employ an experiment in Slovakia that combines a between-subjects experiment with a candidate-choice conjoint. Results indicate strong support for restrictive migration policies generally and that ideology moderates reactions to messages about European Union influence. In response to these messages, liberals shift toward restrictive policy preferences; conservatives do not. These differential effects suggest that messages about European Union influence run up against ceiling effects, where entrenched anti-migration preferences prevent attitudinal change. This paper identifies the limited set of conditions under which the mobilization of public opinion against European integration influences attitudes and electoral preferences.

Findor, Andrej. Matej Hruška, Roman Hlatky, Tomáš Hrustič, Zuzana Bošelová. 2023. "Equality, Reciprocity, or Need? Bolstering Welfare Policy Support for Marginalized Groups with Distributive Fairness." American Political Science Review, 117(3), 805-821. 

• The literature on welfare chauvinism suggests dominant majorities are less likely to support redistribution across identity lines. To encourage support, scholarship recommends designing policies universally and signaling beneficiary deservingness. However, policies supporting disadvantaged groups cannot always be designed universally. Moreover, dominant groups often hold minoritized groups to a deservingness double standard. Thus, we ask: what are effective ways to increase support for outgroup redistribution? We argue that distributive justice principles – justifications for who should get what and why – can bolster support for outgroup redistributive policies. We test through three experiments in Slovakia, with the Roma as the outgroup. Majority Slovaks are most supportive of policies predicated on the principle of reciprocity – with benefits conditional on contribution. Unconditional policies and policies motivated by the principle of need garner Roma minority support. Given salient anti-Roma prejudice, we consider our findings a floor. For less stigmatized outgroups, reciprocity-based policies may bolster support even further.

Csata, Zsombor, Roman Hlatky, Amy H. Liu. 2023. "Ethnic Polarization and Human Development: The Conditional Effects of Language Recognition." Studies in Comparative International Development, 58(1), 79-102. 

• Extant scholarship suggests ethnic polarization has a negative effect on development. Yet, we also know that government policies – e.g., recognizing multiple languages in minority-sizable areas – can attenuate these effects. In this paper, we ask: What are the socioeconomic implications of the territoriality principle in Transylvania, Romania? We leverage a legal stipulation in Romania as a quasi-natural experiment: Minority languages are recognized as official in areas where the minority constitutes more than 20% of the population. We argue the recognition of the Hungarian language in Transylvania builds social trust and facilitates efficiency in economic exchanges – thereby negating the otherwise detrimental consequences of diversity. Using data at the commune level, we find that in areas where only Romanian is recognized, ethnic polarization has a negative effect on development – a result consistent with the literature; this effect, however, is absent in areas where Hungarian is recognized. The implications suggest that it may behoove the Romanian government – if it cares about development – to lower the threshold for territoriality principle.

Gyárfášová, Oľga and Roman Hlatky.  2023. "The Personalization of Politics: Evidence from the Czech and Slovak Republics." Electoral Studies, 81,  1-12. 

• What role do the political party leaders play in individual vote choice? Recent literature argues that leaders are increasingly important for decisions at the ballot box. Moreover, scholars suggest leaders may be particularly consequential in volatile, under-institutionalized party systems, like those of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). Accordingly, we investigate the extent to which leader evaluations matter for individual voting decisions, and whether these evaluations are more consequential than ideological proximities between voters and parties. We also explore whether leaders matter more for leader-centered, ideologically blurry, and populist parties. Through a comparison of the 2017 Czech and 2020 Slovak elections, we find that leader evaluations are strongly associated with voting decisions and that these evaluations tend to be more consequential than ideological proximity. We also show that leaders are more important for parties with strong “brands” – those that have most differentiated themselves from their competitors. 

Findor, Andrej, Matej Hruška, John A. Gould, Roman Hlatky, Zuzana Tomková, Miroslav Sirota. 2023. "Framing Effects, Social Norm Perception, and LGBTQ+ Tolerance: Experimental Evidence from Slovakia." The Journal of Homosexuality, 70(4), 729-753. 

• Perceptions of social norms can have downstream consequences for attitudes and behaviors, especially when it comes to the acceptance of marginalized groups. While interventions focusing on social norms may boost tolerance, few studies test whether variations in norm communication affect individuals’ perceptions. Thus, in this paper, we test the effectiveness of three communicative aspects—valence framing (Experiments 1–3), point of view (Experiment 1), and group centrism (Experiment 3)—in shifting perceptions of social norms. Specifically, we investigate whether manipulating these aspects affects perceptions of tolerance of lesbian and gay individuals in Slovakia, where LGBTQ+ acceptance is among the lowest in Europe. We found that while positively valenced messages shifted perceptions toward tolerance, manipulating point of view and group-centrism did not. We believe that these findings can inform interventions intended to shift perceptions of social norms in hostile contexts, an important first step in changing prejudiced attitudes and behaviors.

Hlatky, Roman. 2021. "EU Funding and Euroskeptic Vote Choice." Political Research Quarterly, 74(2), pp.348-363.
Supplemental Material | Replication 

• Why do voters in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) vote for Euroskeptic political parties? Existing explanations of Euroskepticism suggest that those benefiting economically due to the European Union (EU) are less likely to be Euroskeptic. These approaches fail to take into account the social purpose of EU economic transfers. I argue that the minority advancement realized through EU funding drives voters toward Euroskeptic electoral options. I provide evidence of this relationship through two methods: a large-N statistical analysis and a survey experiment. The large-N analysis employs time-series, regional data from ten CEE member states. The survey experiment tests the hypothesis with a nationally representative sample of the Slovak population. Results from both methods corroborate the hypothesized relationship. Importantly, results suggest that reactionary voters may undermine the long-term institutional goals of the EU due to the short-term consequences of EU policies.

Csata, Zsombor, Roman Hlatky, and Amy Liu. 2021. "How to Head Count Ethnic Minorities: Validity of Census Surveys versus Other-Identification Strategies." East European Politics,  37(3), pp. 572-592.

• Censuses ask individuals to identify their own ethnicity. Minorities, however, may be reluctant to self-identify; and thus, censuses may underreport minority populations, raising concerns about measurement validity. We identify and measure the extent of this concern by matching census data on Romas in Romania against a nationwide survey of 2800 municipality experts (SocioRoMap). While not perfect, we find considerable overlap between the two strategies. In the cases where the two measures do not match, the density of community networks is the driver for likelihood of non-congruence – but demographics factors and socioeconomic conditions account for the level, i.e. the magnitude of difference between the two estimation strategies. Given the systemic discrimination of Romas, these results are cautiously reassuring. As most countries head into a census-collecting year, this paper offers an empirical strategy for assessing the validity of self-identified numbers. If governments are concerned about measurement, random samples of expert assessments can help validate. Alternatively, policymakers can focus where miscounts are most likely: urban, ethnically diverse, and poor localities.

Csata, Zsombor, Roman Hlatky, Amy H. Liu, Ariel Pitre Young. 2021. "The Economic Effects of the Territoriality Principle: Evidence from Transylvania, Romania." Language Problems and Language Planning, 45(2), pp. 165-187.

• The territoriality principle stipulates that minority communities in a given territory should be linguistically accommodated. What are the economic effects of this principle? In this paper, we argue that the recognition of multiple languages confers respect on the minority group; it allows people to engage and participate meaningfully in society – thereby facilitating economic well-being. There is, however, a caveat: When recognition happens in areas where the minority is the overwhelming majority, there is a risk that the near-exclusive use of the minority language cuts the community off from the larger national state, which in turn stunts development. To test this, we focus on Transylvania, Romania. We leverage a legal stipulation that recognizes minority languages in areas where the minority constitutes more than 20% of the population. Using data at the municipal level, we find that recognition in general increases economic well-being – but not in areas where the minority are numerically dominant. Our results are normatively welcoming, but they also caution governments to not simply recognize minority languages but to also protect them adequately