I am a Lecturer in Government at the University of Essex and External Fellow at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research, University of Mannheim. Before coming to Essex, I was an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Mannheim (2017-2018), and a doctoral student, post-doc, and senior researcher at the European Politics group of ETH Zurich (2010-2016). I spent Fall 2015 as a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University.
Fundamentally, my research seeks to understand challenges to legitimate and democratic governance in times of European integration, globalization, and technological change.
I have a long-standing interest in parliaments. For example, can parliaments contribute to democratic and legitimate governance in the European Union or in other international organizations? And if so, how exactly? When and why can we expect political actors to realize (or forgo) the democratic potential that parliaments might have?
Another strand of my work focuses on international institutional design with an emphasis on the European Union. How should the EU react to the heterogenous interests and capacities of its member states? Which reforms do we observe? How can these reforms be explained? What implications do they have for democracy in the EU and the member states?
Finally, in addition to familiar institutions such as parliaments and international organizations, my research examines the emergence of new political arenas in times of technological change. The rise of the Internet has rendered technology companies, expert communities, and transnational regulatory organizations politically relevant. How can we understand the operation, design, and political effects of these arenas? And their implications for legitimate and democratic governance?
Recent projects address the following research questions:
- What explains variation in national parliamentary oversight institutions in the EU?
- What explains differentiation in European integration?
- What explains the spread of parliamentary institutions in international organizations?
- Who participates in internet governance arenas such as the Internet Engineering Task Force? Why does participation vary across countries and actors? What are the political implications of decisions made in these arenas?
