Lisa Zehnter

Lisa Zehnter is a Researcher at the Center for Civil Society Research within the WZB Berlin Social Science Center, where she contributes to the Manifesto Project—an international initiative analyzing election manifestos from over 60 countries to map party positions and preferences. Her role centers on political communication research using computational text analysis methodologies.

Her academic background includes:

• Doctorate in Populist Political Communication, Humboldt University Berlin
• Master's Degree in Social Sciences, Humboldt University Berlin
• Bachelor's Degree in German Literature and Social Sciences, Humboldt University Berlin (with a semester abroad at the University of Gothenburg)

Zehnter specializes in the intersection of populism, political discourse, and computational social science. Her work employs advanced text analysis to dissect election manifestos and political communication strategies, particularly examining populist rhetoric, gender-fair language usage, and crisis responses like the pandemic. She develops hybrid methodologies combining manual and automated coding to enhance analytical precision in large-scale textual datasets.

Her 2021-2025 publications reveal a concentrated focus on German politics—especially the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party—and cross-national manifesto analysis through the Manifesto Project. Key trends include methodological innovations in text analysis, scrutiny of populist communication during crises, and longitudinal studies of party positioning in European democracies.

No scientific awards were documented in the source material.

No information regarding student advising or research grants was provided in the available text.

She actively participates in the Manifesto Project (MARPOR), the Observatory of Political Texts in European Democracies (OPTED), and a collaborative initiative on hybrid text analysis coding techniques, working within international research teams to advance political text analysis frameworks.