I am a Lecturer in Comparative Politics at the University of Augsburg, Germany. In my current research, I study the political regulation (and increasing politicisation) of forced migrants’ access to health and healthcare across Europe. My second main research project sheds light on the early institutional evolution of the European Parliament, especially in the area of European social policy, an area which early Members of the European Parliament used as a means to make European integration more tangible to the member state citizens, and simultaneously to present themselves as representatives of the citizens and their interests in European politics. As part of, and alongside, these two main projects, I focus in my research on the informal dimension of EU politics, especially in times of (poly)crisis; on the activism of EU supranational institutions; and on the evolution of a European social dimension.
My work is located at the intersection of Political Science and History. In my research, I aim for a fruitful combination of political science and historiographical concepts, theories and methods. In so doing, I seek to contribute to bridging disciplinary borders in the genuinely interdisciplinary area of European studies.
Alongside my own research and teaching, I am co-moderator of the blog hosting service Ideas on Europe, and in that role an ex-officio member of the Executive Committee of the European Studies association UACES (University Association for Contemporary European Studies). I am furthermore co-editor of the new De Gruyter book series ‘Europe under Strain‘.
Before coming to Augsburg, I have worked as a research assistant at the EURECON project at Glasgow University. From 2014 to 2018, I was a PhD student and academic assistant at the University of Luxembourg’s Institute of Political Science, and a Jean Monnet Guest Scholar at the Centre for European Studies, Canterbury Christ Church University (2015-2016). From 2017 until 2020, I have been involved in the global data collection project ‘Varieties of Democracy’ (V-Dem) as country coordinator for Luxembourg, and have since then contributed to V-Dem as a country expert. In 2019, I spent several months as a guest scholar at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory in Frankfurt.
I have published in a number of peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes, and have authored a monograph with Palgrave Macmillan on ‘The Parliamentary Roots of European Social Policy‘ (2021). Moreover, I have co-edited a JCER special issue (2017) on EU supranational activism, a volume (2019) with Routledge on ‘The Informal Construction of Europe‘, and most recently a volume with De Gruyter on ‘The EU under Strain? Current Crises Shaping European Union Politics’ (2023) and a volume with Metropol on ‘European integration between aspirations and reality’ (2024, in German) [for more details, please go to Publications]. Keen to contribute to a lively exchange between the research community and the world outside academia, I have published a number of articles on academic blogs, have repeatedly contributed columns to the editorial Ideas on Europe (co-hosted by UACES and Euradio), and have commented on current and past political events and developments in various media.
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