Research
University of Mannheim University College London
During my undergraduate studies, I focussed on comparative government, party politics and political sociology. Writing my B.A. dissertation - "Proportionality as a principle of portfolio allocation in coalition governments" - I started exploring the politics of the executive. My graduate studies were preponderantly focussed on comparative politics of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and Russia, which sparked interest in the institution of the presidency. My M.A. dissertation then dealt with presidential vetoes in Poland and the
application of concepts from U.S. presidential studies to
semi-presidential and parliamentary systems. Building on the findings of my M.A. dissertation, my PhD tries to answer the question why president choose to use their powers and in how far this is due to constitutional factors and partisan constellation in government and parliament. Furthermore, I assess whether the mode of election has an impact on presidential activism and to what degree presidential personality and idiosyncrasy are responsible for the use of presidential powers. Research interestsMy general research interests are mainly in the field of comparative government, especially in the regional context of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). I am preponderantly interested in the quantitative study of executives in general and the institution of the presidency in particular as well as the effects of different institutional arrangements on political actors. Even though I am not doing any research on it at the moment, I am also still interested in party politics. You can follow my research by going to my blog or connect with on academia.edu (you can find more links to network profiles in the 'About'-section of this website). My blog Research in progress- Veto et Peto: Patterns of Presidential Activism in Central and Eastern Europe (Ph.D. thesis; started 09/2010) - The politics of presidential vetoes in Poland, 1991-2010 (article based on my M.A. dissertation) |
