Thomas Zittel is a professor of comparative politics at Goethe-University Frankfurt and external fellow at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES) of the University of Mannheim. He holds an MA from Johns Hopkins University and a PhD from the University of Mannheim. He was a Kennedy Memorial fellow at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies (Harvard University), a Fernand Braudel fellow at the European University Institute (Florence, Italy), and an American Political Science Association Congressional fellow. His research focuses on the institutional and behavioral bases of political representation with a special emphasis on the role of electoral systems, legislative behavior in European democracies, and candidates in election campaigns. Zittel is author and editor of four books. His articles have appeared, among others, in West European Politics, Party Politics, Electoral Studies, Parliamentary Affairs, German Politics, the Journal of Legislative Studies, and the Oxford Handbooks of Political Institutions and Electoral Systems.