Eric Merkley

Dr. Eric Merkley is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto and is Director of the Policy, Elections, and Representation Lab (PEARL). He specializes in political communication, public opinion, and American and Canadian politics. Broadly speaking, he is interested in mass polarization and how elite behaviour and the mass media together shape public attitudes. His research projects have used a variety of methods, including media content analysis (including dictionary-based methods, machine learning, and manual coding), experiments, and time series analysis.
Eric is Principal Investigator of the SSHRC-supported Canadian Polarization Project, and Co-Investigator of the Canadian Digital Media Research Network/Media Ecosystem Observatory. He is the author of Polarization Eh? The Causes and Consequences of Affective Polarization in Canada (University of Toronto Press, 2026). He also has work featured in the American Political Science Review, Nature Human Behaviour, the Journal of Politics, the British Journal of Political Science, Political Communication, Political Behavior, Public Opinion Quarterly, and the Canadian Journal of Political Science, among other outlets.