Aki Koivula
akjeko@utu.fi +358 29 450 2093 +358 40 769 7798 Assistentinkatu 7 Turku Office: 488 ORCID identifier: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8453-0863 |
Political trust, Political attitudes, Political Participation, Political Parties, Digital interaction and participation; Social networks; Social Trust; Media consumption; Longitudinal and Experimental Survey methodology
I am a Docent in Economic Sociology at the University of Turku and a Docent in Political Science at Tampere University.
I currently work at the INVEST Research Flagship in several research and leadership roles. I am a Senior Research Fellow in the project Stratification and Equality of Opportunity in the Era of Novel Technologies (PI: Jani Erola) and head the research group responsible for the development and implementation of the INVEST Longitudinal Study on Well-Being (ILSW).
I am also the Principal Investigator of two research projects: Segregated Trust and Sleeping Suburbs: Intra-Urban Inequalities in Political Efficacy and Electoral Participation (SEGREGTRUST) and The Impact of Increasing Socioeconomic Residential Segregation on the Accumulation of Educational Disadvantages and People’s Life Courses (SOSE). These projects examine how socioeconomic segregation shape political engagement, attitudes, educational opportunities, well-being, and life-course outcomes.
In addition, I lead a work package in the Finnish Infrastructure for Register-Based Research consortium, where my work focuses particularly on improving permit and data-access processes for register-based research.
From 2020 to 2024, I led the KRIME research group, which examined the social consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a particular focus on trust, crisis communication, and public responses to the pandemic. Before joining INVEST, I held several teaching and research positions and served for two years as Head of the Economic Sociology Unit at the University of Turku.
My research focuses on citizens' well-being and their engagement with state institutions within the context of societal change. In particular, I have studied the drivers and consequences of political trust, as well as the impact of digital technology on human behaviour and interaction. I have published extensively in leading academic journals, such as European Political Science Review, Sociology, Social Science & Medicine, and New Media & Society.
My current teaching profile centers on PhD supervision and the development of research proposals. I am responsible for INWS0018 Research Proposal Workshop. I supervise nine PhD researchers whose topics range from political attitudes to subjective well-being.
- Suomalaiset sosiaalisessa mediassa: provosointi ja kiistely yleisintä elämäänsä tyytymättömillä miehillä (2018)
- Poliittiset kuplat
(E1 Popularised article) - Trust and Privacy in Messaging (2018)
- IADIS International Journal on Www/Internet
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Trusting in the Security of Private Messages: A Survey-Based Analysis of Finnish Internet Users (2018) Proceedings of the 16th International Conference e-Society 2018 Jukka Vuorinen, Aki Koivula, Ilkka Koiranen
(A4 Refereed article in a conference publication ) - A deeper look at party members – assessing members’ and supporters’ social structure. Research on Finnish Society (2017)
- Research On Finnish Society
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Arkielämä ja osallistuminen –kyselyn tutkimusseloste ja edustavuustarkastelu (2017) Aki Koivula, Ringa Sirppiniemi, Ilkka Koiranen, Janna Oksanen
(D4 Published development or research report or study ) - Does party identification associate with consumer preferences?
Analyzing Finnish consumers in 2009 and 2014 (2017)- International Journal of Consumer Studies
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Do mail and web surveys yield similar results when examining attitudes towards immigrants? (2017)
- Research papers in economic sociology
(D4 Published development or research report or study ) - Päivystävällä dosentilla on painavaa asiaa – ei ainakaan keskustan ja perussuomalaisten kannattajien mielestä (2017)
- Poliittiset kuplat
(E1 Popularised article) - Political party preference and social trust in four Nordic countries (2017)
- Comparative European Politics
(A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal) - Puolueiden rakenteet ja jäsenistön verkostot (2017) Ilkka Koiranen, Aki Koivula, Arttu Saarinen, Pekka Räsänen
(D4 Published development or research report or study )



