Welcome to my website! I am a political scientist in the Department of Political Science at Johannes Gutenberg University (JGU) Mainz, where I am affiliated with the Comparative Politics Group.
My research lies at the intersection of comparative politics, political sociology, and political economy. I study political attitudes and voting behaviour, party competition, political representation, and democratic support in established democracies, with a particular focus on Germany in comparative perspective and on Western Europe more broadly. My current research examines emerging political cleavages, social identities, and citizens’ perceptions of public opinion. Methodologically, my work is theory-guided and primarily quantitative, drawing, inter alia, on survey and aggregate data, panel-data analyses, and survey experiments.
Since April 2026, I have held a three-year DFG “Eigene Stelle” for the project Identity and the Globalization Cleavage (GLOBID). Previously, I served as interim professor at the University of Bamberg (Political Sociology) and at JGU Mainz (Comparative Politics). I earned a Diplom (equivalent to a master’s degree) from the University of Hamburg in 2009 and completed my doctorate at JGU Mainz in 2015. My work has appeared in leading peer-reviewed journals including the British Journal of Political Science (BJPS), European Journal of Political Research (EJPR), Journal of European Public Policy (JEPP), Political Psychology, and West European Politics (WEP).
I am currently involved in two research projects funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). In GLOBID, which I co-lead with Matthias Mader, we study how globalization-related social identities are articulated by political elites, internalized by citizens, and activated in electoral politics across Western Europe. In the project False Consensus Beliefs in Politics and Their Effects on Legitimacy, part of the DFG Research Group Big Structural Change (BISC) and led by Claudia Landwehr, we study citizens’ (mis-)perceptions of public opinion and their consequences for perceived democratic legitimacy, political support, and populist attitudes.
Beyond research, I am strongly committed to academic teaching. I have taught a broad range of courses, including undergraduate lectures in comparative politics and political sociology and specialized, research-oriented seminars. In 2021, I received the JGU Teaching Award for outstanding teaching.
I also contribute to the discipline through editorial work and professional service. Since 2023, I have served as one of three co-chairs of the Arbeitskreis Wahlen und politische Einstellungen (Working Group on Elections and Political Attitudes) of the German Political Science Association (DVPW) and co-edit a book series on elections and political attitudes published by Springer. I have also served as Associate Editor of the Politische Vierteljahresschrift (PVS) since 2025, where I am responsible for submissions in comparative politics, political sociology, empirical social research, and methods.
Beyond academia, I engage with broader audiences through media contributions, public talks, and knowledge-transfer projects, drawing on my research to contribute to public debates on elections, political attitudes, and democratic politics.
On this website, you can find my publications, a comprehensive CV, replication materials for my published research, and information on selected working papers. You can also visit my Google Scholar profile and ORCID profile, or follow me on Bluesky. Please feel free to get in touch regarding my work, media enquiries, invitations to speak, potential collaborations, or other requests.