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.
My research focuses on European political institutions. However, it relates to many sub-fields including international relations, political behavior, and technology governance. I am interested in how democratic institutions change in response to European integration and globalization, and how European and international institutions adapt to domestic political pressures. In recent years, I have developed a new line of work on internet governance. What ties these strands together is a general concern with the possibility to strengthen legitimate and democratic practices of governance in the context of major political and societal transformations.
Amongst others, my research projects address the following research questions:
- What explains variation in national parliamentary oversight institutions in the EU?
- Why do some countries participate in all EU policies whereas others opt-out or are excluded from policies such as the Eurozone or Schengen Area?
- 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 the technical decisions made in these arenas?
