She is also a member of the Parties Research Group at UM. Orit's principal field of research is comparative politics of developed democracies. Her interests include electoral politics, the interaction of behavior and institutions, party systems, and European Integration. Theoretically motivated, her work relies on empirical investigation. Other substantive interests include multilevel explanations in comparative politics, electoral systems, federalism, representation, questions of identity, social choice, and spatial models of voting. She is also interested in quantitative methods, as well as in experiments in political science. Her work appeared in such venues as the American Political