Welcome to my personal homepage.
I am a researcher at Freie Universität Berlin, where I am member of the Center for European Integration at the Otto Suhr Institute for Political Science. I received my PhD from the University of Cologne in December 2012 and worked there for a number of years as a lecturer in European Union politics. I spent two years as post-doctoral researcher at the Centre for European Research (CERGU) in Gothenburg, Sweden, before joining the department in Berlin, first in January 2018 as a post-doctoral researcher as part of the Soft Law Research Network (SoLaR), then in October 2019 as a member of the Center for European Integration.
My primary research interest is the role of courts in political processes and judicial procedures as a mode of solving political conflicts. In the past, this interest has mainly focussed on the European Court of Justice, the highest court of the European Union. In my doctoral research I have studied in particular how the European Commission can achieve policy goals through litigation that it could not achieve through legislation. You can download my dissertation here.
My current research centres mostly around the use of litigation by interest groups and private companies. Here, I am interested in two questions. First: What makes some interest groups or companies more likely to go to court than others? And second: Are court proceedings a sensible way to solve conflicts, and how do they relate to other modes of conflict resolution? You can find more information on my ‘Current Projects‘ page.
My teaching has covered many aspects of European Union politics, with a special emphasis on its political system, integration theory, and the political economy of market integration and the eurozone.