A Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Leicester and King’s College London.
Catherine Moez is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Leicester and King’s College London, currently working on a project on long-run public opinion on immigration in Europe. Previously (2024-2025), she was a postdoctoral fellow at Centre for the Politics of Feelings, a joint psychology-political science lab operating out of School of Advanced Studies and Royal Holloway, University of London. She is interested in quantitative text analysis, other quantitative research methodologies, and topically on understanding the drivers of support for anti-establishment political parties. She graduated from the University of Toronto with a PhD in political science in 2024.
Hosted by: Tessera – Graduate Research Collective
Participants: Justinas Stankus (Interviewer), Dr. Catherine Moez (Guest)
Research Agenda & Methods
Justinas:
Your work focuses on political disaffection and the decline of the political centre. What initially motivated this research agenda, and how has it evolved from your PhD to your postdoctoral work?
Dr. Moez:
My research focus came out of reading a lot of 2010s literature on populism, which I thought didn’t deal enough with how ‘establishment’ politicians often use a lot of the same communication strategies, like emotional language.
In my PhD, I have exclusively ‘observational’ data on how politicians speak in public settings, which is an important component of this line of research but doesn’t tell us much about what is effective with audiences. In my first postdoc (with Centre for the Politics of Feelings), we began to collect our own data to see what members of the public responded to more favourably in terms of speeches and statements from politicians.
Justinas:
You work extensively with unstructured text and audio data. What do you see as the main analytical advantages—and limitations—of these methods for studying political communication and affect?
Dr. Moez:
Unstructured data like text and audio is sort of novel in the quantitative politics research field. There are also a lot of resources from recent years and even political speeches and texts from decades or hundreds of years ago. So, the advantage can be to approach these more nebulous forms of political expression (previously limited to qualitative/interpretive analysis) with new forms of measurement.
I would say the main downside is that the shift to LLMs in the last couple of years (for text analysis purposes, not writing in this instance) has taken focus away from the more ‘transparent’ ways to run an analysis of a text. People are not always clear on what the LLM is using in the text now to reach its outputs, versus before, with a simpler model, you would have a sense of which words or grammatical structures are driving your results.
Justinas:
Much of your research compares mainstream and anti-establishment political actors. Based on your findings, are there consistent stylistic or emotional patterns that distinguish these groups across different countries?
Dr. Moez:
One finding that was interesting to me from the PhD was that it is centre-left politicians, not anti-establishment types, who use the most fear-related language. Other findings are a bit more expected though, such as how anti-establishment speakers do tend to express more anger, and more emotional language overall. They are also a bit simpler and more direct with how they speak, whereas the more mainstream types like to use complicated and abstract (vague) nouns (like ‘institution’, ‘communities’, etc.).
Justinas:
Your empirical work spans several Anglosphere cases, with additional multilingual datasets. How does cross-national comparison shape your understanding of political discontent, and where do you see the most meaningful variation?
Dr. Moez:
I am mostly surprised by how consistent the ideological groups (e.g. the more radical left) tend to be across countries. I think that in many cases, they are not deliberately borrowing from each other, but the language differences could reflect their underlying belief systems. One thing I would like to look more into, especially regarding the more prominent ‘establishment’ politicians, is the role of ‘media training’ or any deliberate instructions they have to avoid controversial statements. I think this is one reason they tend to be vague in speech. More broadly, I suspect that this tendency was effective with audiences when it first emerged (around the 1990s) but now puts people off.
Justinas:
You have created and shared substantial research infrastructure—such as language wordlists, electoral datasets, and parliamentary voting records. How do you decide which tools or datasets are worth developing? How is this kind of infrastructure-building work valued within academic careers, and in what circles? How do you think it should be viewed?
Dr. Moez:
The datasets I’ve worked on are mainly just made out of/for my own interests. I’m not sure they have “helped” my “career”. I think that having a distinct research question or publication in mind for each one might be a better strategy.
Academic Careers & UK Experience
Justinas:
You completed your PhD in Canada and then secured a postdoctoral position in the UK. What were the key factors that helped you successfully obtain a UK-based postdoc?
Dr. Moez:
I think for the first position I took, having ‘novel’ research areas and skills was very helpful. Again, LLMs are kind of undermining the benefits of having coding skills in the job market, but I think there is definitely still a place for building up some kind of skill base when it comes to statistics, coding, or other research techniques. I think that addressing socially important topics can also help when it comes to grants or jobs.
Justinas:
How would you compare the academic culture and working environment at UK universities with your experience in Canada, particularly in terms of research expectations, supervision, and institutional support?
Dr. Moez:
I do find that UK institutions seem to be more open to new ideas and branches of research, whereas the Canadian funders (and possibly schools) sometimes wait for certain topics to be more popular and well-trodden before they will support them. There is definitely encouragement to pursue new and/or ‘big’ ideas in the UK system.
Justinas:
For early-career scholars considering the UK academic system, what aspects have you found most rewarding, and what aspects have been more challenging or unexpected?
Dr. Moez:
I personally have really enjoyed the culture in the UK, academic and otherwise. The downsides include learning a new system of how university careers and funding work in a new country, and there are funding shortages across most British universities at the moment. Moving to a new country is also a bit of a challenge, even when you speak the same language.
I will say that UK academia is quite international, and so you will meet many scholars from e.g. the US or across Europe. (So much so that I started trying to do more activities outside of work to meet the local Brits, as there are sometimes not that many in the average academic workplace). I have been interested in British politics and arts/music for a while, so I wanted to make sure I was making the most of the move.
Justinas:
Looking back, what practical advice would you give to PhD students or recent graduates who are aiming to transition internationally—especially those interested in postdoctoral positions in the UK?
Dr. Moez:
Realistically, there is a lot of competition for jobs, and I am always told that publishing is the most important thing to do in order to progress. I think this is good advice, but would also say it’s important to pursue topics that you find really interesting and important, and that haven’t been done before in a way that you find sufficient. There are really a lot of great universities here, and many public/university talks to attend, so I would definitely recommend my experience to others if they are interested.
To learn more about Dr. Catherine Moez and her work, please visit her personal website: https://catmoez.dev/
