I employ observational and causal inference methods to study how shocks to economic and social expectations shape political attitudes and voting behaviour in advanced democracies, focusing on three domains: returns to education, the impact of AI, and housing affordability.
If you have similar research interests and would like to discuss or know more about my work, feel free to click on the sections below
or reach out at g.inglese@lse.ac.uk.
I am on the 2025/2026 academic job market.
article
Green, J., Grant, Z., Evans, G., & Inglese, G. (2025). Linking artificial
intelligence job exposure to expectations: Understanding AI losers, winners, and
their political preferences. Research & Politics, 12(2).
PhD Papers
From Aspiration to Disillusion? The Political Consequences of AI-driven Employment Threats
Best Paper Prize, CIVICA EU Conference on Political Behaviour, CEU 2025
IBEI AI & Politics Workshop 2025 slides
Abstract
What are the political effects of Artificial Intelligence among highly educated workers? The rapid diffusion of generative artificial intelligence poses novel risks within the highly educated workforce, yet its political consequences remain poorly understood. I argue that graduates who are exposed to generative AI expect lower returns from their educational investment. As AI substitutes for occupations concentrated in their chosen fields of study, graduates face deteriorating career prospects, which erode beliefs in systemic fairness and support for mainstream parties. To test this argument, I combine twenty-five waves of the British Election Study Internet Panel (2017–2025) with monthly occupational vacancy data (Textkernel–ONS) and occupation-level AI exposure measures. I exploit the introduction of ChatGPT in the United Kingdom in December 2022 as a quasi-natural experiment in a difference-in-differences design to identify the causal effect of AI field exposure. I show that graduates in more exposed fields exhibit heightened perceptions of systemic unfairness and reduced support for the Labour Party. The effects are driven by contractions in labour demand for occupations tied to their degrees, and depend crucially on the degree of field-level skills specificity. By demonstrating how Generative AI reshapes political attitudes and fractures the highly educated electorate, the paper significantly contributes to debates on technological change and political polarisation in advanced democracies.
Aspirational, Still? Local House Price Increases and Political Preferences
APSA 2025 slides
Abstract
How do house prices shape renters' political behaviour? Mounting research is showing that housing unaffordability is intensifying political divides across advanced democracies. As prices rise, homeowners benefit from asset appreciation, while renters face escalating costs and are increasingly priced out of the market. Yet, while existing research has largely focused on homeownership as a driver of economic and political conservatism, the political implications of renting are underexplored. This paper argues that the divide between homeowners and renters widens when renters lose the expectation of future homeownership and see themselves as permanently excluded from the housing ladder. Focusing on the United Kingdom, I employ a shift-share instrument that combines local variation in housing characteristics with aggregate price changes to identify the causal effect of house price growth on renters’ political attitudes and voting intentions. The results show that exogenous housing appreciation increases support for redistribution while simultaneously intensifying cultural concerns about immigration. Electorally, these housing shocks generate a critical trade-off for the Labour Party between addressing renters’ material interests and responding to their status-related anxieties. Overall, the findings provide new evidence on the deepening political cleavage between homeowners and renters, shedding light on a key mechanism linking rising house prices to political polarisation in the United Kingdom.
Unmet Expectations and Attitudes toward the Role of Government
EPSA 2024 slides
Abstract
From diminishing income returns to education to hiring freezes, young labour market entrants in advanced democracies experience mounting economic insecurity. While growing up with the meritocratic belief that education ensures rewards, they face a mismatch between their expectations and reality. This paper examines the political effects of this trend in the United Kingdom. It argues that the gap between income expectations formed in early adulthood and the realised shape beliefs about the fairness of the market system over the life course, increasing demands for government intervention in the economy. Using 30 combined waves of the British Household Panel Survey and Understanding Society datasets, the paper finds that the gap between income expectations and real earnings during formative years is a strong predictor of attitudes towards economic interventionism that leaves a lasting imprint. Moreover, effects are more pronounced among respondents with higher education and from more privileged social class backgrounds. The paper contributes to the literature on redistribution preferences in advanced economies by shedding new light on the mechanisms underpinning the formation of economic attitudes and the political implications of economic disappointment at a young age.
Other Projects
Economic Shocks and the Masculinity Threat
with
Philipp Heyna
and
Djordje Milosav
Summary
Recent evidence suggests that support for far-right parties is growing among young men across Western democracies. While existing research addresses far-right support among middle-aged and older men, explanations for its growing appeal among younger men remain limited. Economic accounts stress gendered insecurity and status decline, while cultural approaches highlight backlash against changing gender norms. However, we know little about whether and how these processes interact. This paper proposes a new theoretical framework that integrates economic insecurity, masculinity, and support for the far-right. We argue that conservative young men hold expectations of upward mobility in line with traditional gender norms. Economic insecurity undermines these expectations, threatening masculine identity by generating a mismatch between the idealized provider role and their perceived ability to fulfill it. To resolve the resulting dissonance, young men adopt both externalized, aggressive strategies, such as hostile sexism and far-right support and internalized, defensive strategies, such as rejecting their own provider role. We test this argument using observational causal evidence and a survey experiment. Our findings advance the understanding of the drivers of youth support for the far-right and inform strategies to safeguard democratic stability.
Which Workers Vote for the Conservative Right? Working Class Electoral Behaviour in the 2015, 2017 and 2019 UK General Elections
with Paolo Gerbaudo
Graduate Teaching Assistant, LSE Government
- GV264 Politics and Institutions in Europe
AY 2024–25, full unit; AY 2025–26, full unit.
- GV251 Government, Politics and Public Policy of the European Union
AY 2024–25, full unit.
My research examines the political consequences of declining economic expectations in advanced knowledge economies, focusing on three key sources of insecurity: falling income returns to education, the rise of artificial intelligence, and housing unaffordability. Using panel and administrative data, I combine observational and causal inference methods to analyse how these shocks widen the gap between expected and realised outcomes, fostering perceptions of market unfairness and detachment from mainstream politics. My findings show that younger cohorts are particularly sensitive to disruptions in future prospects, with important long-term implications for the stability of European democracies.
I am an affiliate of Nuffield College (University of Oxford) and a Research Assistant at the
Nuffield Politics Research Centre.
I am also affiliated with the
LSE Data Science Institute and serve as LSE representative to the
European Graduate Network.
Currently, I am visiting the
University of Zurich, hosted by
Thomas Kurer.
I hold a BSc in Political Science from the
University of Pisa and an MA from the
University of Florence, where I was an honours student at the
Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies and the
Scuola Normale Superiore.
I also hold an MSc in Comparative Politics from the
LSE, funded by the
Ermenegildo Zegna Founder’s Scholarship.
Previously, I was a
Blue Book Trainee at the European Commission’s DG CNECT.
More details in my CV.
