Michael Bruter is Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics and Political Science where he leads the ECREP initiative - the largest existing research initiative fully dedicated to the study of electoral psychology, using surveys, experiments, interviews and observations to understand what goes on in people's minds when they are in the polling booth and how electoral memory builds up over a lifetime. The project is conducted in over 20 countries, and includes New Zealand data. Bruter publishes widely about elections, electoral psychology, youth voting, political behaviour, identities, public opinion and extreme right politics. He's spoken at the University of Auckland this week about austerity in Europe and 'Testing European identity', looking at the role of identity in shaping how Britain voted in its Brexit referendum, as well as how other European countries view membership of the EU bloc.