Dr. Omri Cohen was awarded a Fulbright postdoctoral fellowship to pursue his project titled “Towards a Theory of Urban Populism”. Addressing two separate disciplines, populism and urban studies, this project will empirically explore urban populism on three levels: 1) populism of the city—how is a “local people” constructed and mobilized against “local elites”? 2) populism in the city—what role does the city play as a site of national populism? 3) populism and the city—how is the city influenced by and reacts to populism on the national level? Additionally, the project will involve conceptual development and normative analysis to complement the empirical findings.

Previously, Cohen completed a bachelor's degree and master’s degree in English literature from the Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University, respectively. Before turning to political science, he published research on education and empathy in minority literature.

Cohen completed his PhD under the supervision of Professor Dani Filc and Dr. Noam Tirosh. His work covers issues of populist theory, democratization, urban political theory, and digital political communication.

Key publications from his PhD include:

Cohen, O. (2025). Can urban populism democratize the city? The Tel Aviv-Jaffa 2008 municipal elections and their aftermath, Cities. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2024.105524

Cohen, O. (2025). Practices of transformative populism: An illustrative study of the Bernie Sanders presidential runs. Political Studies Review. https://doi.org/10.1177/14789299251326781