Dr. Philip Warncke is a comparative political scientist studying the origins, properties, and consequences of political belief systems. He also develops conceptual and computational methods that are more suitable for latent constructs – like political ideology – that are often tricky to capture with conventional statistics. His other substantial  field of interest deals with the influence of personality, values, and socio-professional experiences on legislators’ behavior.

Dr. Warncke holds an MA in Political Science from UNC Chapel Hill (2021), an MSc. in Comparative Politics from the London School of Economics (2015), and a BA in Political Management from Hochschule Bremen (2014). He also obtained class credit at UCSD (2012) and King’s College London (2017).

At SCRIPTS, Dr. Warncke is working as a scientific staff member in the Data and Methodology Center.

• Mass ideology and belief systems
• Belief network analysis & item response networks
• Bayesian latent variable models
• Computational sensitivity analysis & simulation
• Elite behavior, values, and personality

Journal Articles

Warncke, Philip 2025: What Explains Country-Level Differences in Political Belief System Coherence?, Political Behavior: 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-025-10015-9.

Warncke, Philip / Searing, Donald D. / Allen, Nicholas 2024: Active, Assertive, Anointed, Absconded? Testing Claims About Career Politicians in the United Kingdom, European Journal of Political Research 63(3): 1129–1154. https://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6765.12637.

Carpentras, Dino / Warncke, Philip 2024: The Hidden Problem in Big Data. Even Infinite Information Does Not Guarantee Consistent Measurement, Society Register 8(4): 7–30. https://doi.org/10.3929/ethz-b-000720100.

Allen, Nicholas / Magni, Gabriele / Searing, Donald D. / Warncke, Philip 2020: What is a career politician? Theories, concepts, and measures, European Political Science Review 12(2): 199–217. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1755773920000077.

Book Chapters

Warncke, Philip / Chen, Yijing / Carpentras, Dino / Lüders, Adrian / Speer, Anne / de  Bruin, Bart 2025: ResIN. A New Method to Analyze Socio-Political Attitude Systems, in: Keijzer, Marijn / Lorenz, Jan / Bojanowski, Michal (eds.): Computational Social Science of Social Cohesion and Polarization, London: Springer. https://doi.org/10.31219/osf.io/p3x2n_v2.

Warncke, Philip 2018: Brexit, Trump, and Polling Error. What Pollsters Missed and Why We Should Care, in: Bitzegeio, Ursula / Adorf, Philipp (eds.): Brexit. Trend and Zeitgeist of Europe’s Imperilled Democracies?, Bonn: Dietz Verlag.

Other Publications

Lüders, Adrian / Warncke, Philip / Quayle, Mike / Carpentras, Dino 2023: The Vicious Cycle of Political Polarization, Washington DC: The Hill, https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4131461-the-vicious-cycle-of-political-polarization/ (accessed 4 August 2025).