Associate Professor
Department of Government
University of Texas at Austin

My research interests include European party politics, elections, representation, and voter behavior. My work so far has appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, British Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, and other journals. 

I am currently working on a series of projects examining campaign strategies of political parties and the electoral and perceptual consequences of parties' campaign positions. 

I am the co-winner of the Emerging Scholar Award given by the Political Organizations and Parties section of the American Political Science Association (2013) and have received various other awards for my research. 

My undergraduate teaching offerings include European Union Politics, West European Politics, and Comparative Political Parties. At the graduate level, I teach Comparative Political Parties and Comparative Representation and Accountability seminars, as well as Scope and Methods and Statistics I courses as part of the methods sequence. 

zsomer@utexas.edu