Lucie Bohdalová

// DISSERTATION PROJECT

The personal is political': How Gender, Generations and Stratified Access to Resources Shape Political Attitudes and Engagement in Czech Society

How do social stratifications and resources shape issue salience, political attitudes, and concreate political activisation in post-socialist Czechia?” My dissertation answers this question by examining how social stratifications and access to resources shape political priorities, attitudes, and mobilisation in post-socialist Czechia. Drawing on large-scale survey analyses and qualitative research, it shows that political behaviour is not merely a matter of personal choice or institutional influence. It is deeply structured by gendered life experiences, generational socialisation under different regimes, and unequal access to both material and emotional resources. The thesis identifies three key modes through which these dynamics operate: gendered resource access and political priorities, generational legacies of socialism and democratisation, and embodied, affective drivers of youth activism. By revealing how caregiving responsibilities shape women's political concerns, how cohorts raised under socialism retain lower political trust, and how emotions and nature-relatedness fuel environmental engagement among young people, the research focuses on political engagement as a lived and stratified experience. Positioned within broader European debates, it challenges the idea that Eastern Europe is simply ‘catching up’, instead offering Czechia as a critical lens for understanding how inequality, history, and emotion converge to shape political voice in transforming societies.

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// ACADEMIC BACKGROUND

2020 - Date
Research Fellow, Political Science, Bamberg Graduate School of Social Sciences - University of Bamberg

2019 - 2020
Visiting Research Fellow, Political Science, Bamberg Graduate School of Social Sciences - University of Bamberg

2016 - 2019
Masters Degree in Public Policy and Human Resources, Masaryk University, Faculty of Social Studies, Brno, CZ

2015 - 2018
Masters Degree in Political Science, Masaryk University, Faculty of Social Studies, Brno, CZ

2012 - 2015
Bachelors Degree in Political Science, Masaryk University, Faculty of Social Studies, Brno, CZ

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// EXPERIENCE

2017 - 2018
Public Relations' Coordinator, Masaryk University Language Centre, Brno, Czech Republic

2016 - 2017
Intern, Office of Secretary General's Special Representative for Women Peaceand Security, NATO Headquarters, Brussels, Belgium

2015 - 2016
Student Ambassador, Routes into Languages, Loughborough University, UK

2015
Traineeship, Office of Public Defender of Rights, Brno, Czech Republic

2013
Intern, Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs of the Czech Republic, Prague, Czech Republic

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// PUBLICATIONS
 

Bohdalová, L. (2025). Generational dynamics of political trust and satisfaction in Czechia: the enduring impact of political socialisation during socialism. East European Politics, 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/21599165.2025.2523437

Bohdalová, L. (2025). Gender Differences in Public Issue Salience: Evidence from Czechia. East European Politics and Societies. https://doi.org/10.1177/08883254251321179

Bohdalová, Lucie, and Věra Stojarová. “Service within the extremely gendered North Atlantic Treaty Organization: civil and military personnel’s approaches to gender equality-focused policies”. European Journal of Politics and Gender (published online ahead of print 2023). < https://doi.org/10.1332/251510821X16777440272378>.

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// CONFERENCES AND WORKSHOPS

2025
Alumni-Akademie 2025 ?KI-Anwendung im beruflichen Alltag“, Presentation: "Geschlechterbenachteiligung bei Wegfall von Arbeitspl?tzen durch KI?", veranstaltet von BAYHOST in Kooperation mit der Technischen Hochschule Deggendorf (THD), DE, 16.–20. Juli 2025

Politics Inside and Outside Parliament in Central and Eastern Europe and the Baltic Countries, Presentation: From Passion for Nature to Political Action: How Young Czech Greens Frame Their Engagement in Environmental Change, the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies (CBEES) at S?dert?rn University, Stockholm, Sweden, 15-16 May 2025

2023
Erster Workshop für promovierende Friedens- und Konfliktforscher*innen in Bayern organized by University Augsburg, Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences. Presentation: “Service within the Extremely Gendered Organization of NATO: The Civil and Military Personnel’s Approaches to Gender Equality Focused Policies”. Franken-Akademie/Schloss Schney in Lichtenfels, Bavaria. 26 – 28 October 2023.

2022
European Conference on Politics and Gender organized by the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR). Presentation: “Private Women and Economic Men? Policy Priorities of the Czech Women and Men and its Consequences”. University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. 6 – 8 July 2022.

2021
26th IPSA World Congress of Political Science organized by the International Political Science Association (IPSA) with the theme New Nationalisms in an Open World. Presentation: “Migration Experiences and Career Paths of Young Israelis with Soviet Ancestries through Personal Narratives” held virtually 10-15 July 2021.

Conference of the Czech Sociological Association, Presentation: “Gender Differences in the Political Preferences of the Public Opinion in the Czech Republic” Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University, held virtually 23-25 June 2021.

2020
ECPR Winter School in Methods and Techniques, the Bamberg Graduate School of Social Sciences, the Otto-Friedrich-Universit?t Bamberg, Bavaria, Germany

2019
NORA Conference on Border Regimes, Territorial Discourses, and Feminist Politics,
the University of Iceland
Presented Paper: 'Gendering Policies' Actors in NATO Missions in Afghanistan'.

Image Credits: ? Bamberg Graduate School of Social Sciences