I am a Professor of Political Science and International & Transnational Relations at the University of Luzern and an associated researcher at the Cluster of Excellence “The Politics of Inequality” of the University of Konstanz.
Before joining the University of Luzern, I was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Konstanz (2014-2016) and in the “International Political Economy” group at the Center for Comparative and International Studies (CIS) and the Institute for Environmental Decisions (IED) at ETH Zürich (2011-2014). My postdoctoral research projects focused on the spatial and temporal dynamics in climate change policy-making, the link between climate change and migration as well as on individual trade preferences. From 2006-2011, I completed my dissertation on the interdependencies in decision-making between local governments within the United States with a special focus on voluntary climate change policy at ETH Zürich.
Research Interests
In my research activities, I am interested in how global problems (climate change) and enhanced interdependence (globalization) that transcend the traditional sphere of the nation state impact on politics and governance aspects within and between nations. In both of the overarching research domains of globalization and climate change, I combine insights from international political economy, comparative politics and theories of regulation.
Comparative Climate Change Politics
My contribution to research on climate change politics is to demonstrate how citizens’ exposure to costs and benefits, perceptions of fairness, and the credibility of policy design jointly determine public acceptance of ambitious climate measures. My main achievement here is to show how these individual-level dynamics shape distributive concerns, compensatory preferences, and willingness to support or resist policy expansion. This acceptance (or resistance) then scales up to structure politicization, influence party competition, and condition elite responsiveness in climate and energy policy on a macro level. Methodologically, my work combines comparative cross-country designs, survey and survey-experimental evidence, and analyses of party and manifesto data, thereby linking micro-level mechanisms to meso- and macro-level political outcomes. (see under Project and Publications).
Individual Preferences for Globalization
From a birds-eye view, I am interested in the impact of Globalization for individuals and their preferences. In trade, we demonstrate how information cues determine whether individuals reason egotropically or sociotropically about trade openness, clarifying when national versus personal considerations dominate (Schaffer & Spilker 2019, RIPE). In labor migration, we find that fairness perceptions and exposure jointly structure attitudes toward cross-border labor mobility, moving beyond conventional materialist versus cultural explanations (Schaffer & Spilker 2026, AJPS). Together, these studies demonstrate that exposure and fairness considerations are central across issue domains in explaining how individuals evaluate mobility in a globalized and environmentally stressed world. Methodologically, the work employs multi-country surveys and survey experiments linked to contextual indicators, identifying both general mechanisms and context-conditioned effects. (see page on publications).
lena maria schaffer 