Catharina O'Donnell

Research interests: Intra-group conflict; political violence; social movements; organization and mobilization; masculinity; conservative and right-wing politics; ideology and collective identity; computational text analysis; ethnography and ‘netnography’.

Bio: I research how political actors develop tactics and ideologies that both respond to and remake their political environments. My dissertation combines computational text analysis with participant observation to examine when, where, and how Trump-aligned activists have entered Republican Party organizations, and with what consequences. In another project, I use computational text analysis to compare the mass email mobilization strategies of large political organizations on the left and right. A third line of research uses digital ethnography to examine how Incel movement activists build their ideology, tactics, and shared identity. My research is published in the British Journal of Sociology and the American Behavioral Scientist and has received paper awards from the Canadian Sociological Association and the American Sociological Association. 

This information is accurate as of the affiliate year indicated. (last updated 12.28.2025)