19 January 2026
The Economic Foundations of Social Identity and Political Fragmentation
Amalie Sofie Jensen and her coauthors Jacob Hariri (University of Copenhagen) and Andreas Wiedemann (Princeton University) receive a Semper Ardens: Accelerate grant from the Carlsberg Foundation of DKK 6.1m to study “The Economic Foundations of Social Identity and Political Fragmentation”.
Political polarization and the erosion of democratic institutions are among the most pressing problems societies face today. The literature has identified two drivers of these developments: economic factors and social identity. While each dimension is typically considered in isolation, the project studies how social identity and group affiliations might endogenously depend on economic factors and structures of inequality both within and across groups. If identity politics indeed has economic roots, the results will improve our understanding of how traditional redistributive policy tools can be used to counter political polarization.
The theoretical framework for the project is economic social identity models to be tested and refined using large-scale survey experiments linked to Danish administrative records. The project decomposes inequality into within- and between-group differences for a variety of politically relevant identity groups over time, elicit voters’ perceptions of these inequalities, and test how perceptions affect group affiliations and ultimately political outcomes and preferences.
One aim of the project is to strengthen the political economy research environment at CEBI and the Department of Economics. In addition to Amalie Sofie Jensen, Jacob Hariri, and Andreas Wiedemann, the project team will also include a PhD student and a postdoc to be hired to the project.
You can read more about the project here