Academic Employment

October 2023- present	University of Bremen, Institute of European Studies
April 2023- September 2023	Leibniz University Hannover Professor ad interim on leave from Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg Institute of Political Science
September 2022- February 2023	University of California, Berkeley Visiting Researcher Institute of European Studies
January 2020- September 2023	Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg Postdoctoral Researcher and Teaching Associate Institute of Political Science
October 2013- December 2019	Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg Research and Teaching Associate Institute of International Relations and Institute of Political Science
February 2012- September 2013	Trier University Research and Teaching Associate Institute of Political Science

Teaching

John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies, Freie Universität Berlin, Winter semester 2024/25

B.A. Programme, Vertiefungsseminar, The Populist Right and the International

B.A. Programme, Vertiefungsseminar, Conceptual and institutional domestic sources of US foreign policy

MA Programme, Hauptseminar/Seminar, Gender and International Politics                                                           

MA Programme Mastercolloquium Political Science (also for GSNAS)

Universität Bremen

Summer Semester 2024

Polarization: A multifaceted phenomenon in the European Union [graduate seminar] 

Democratic Backsliding and Illiberalisms in the European Union [undergraduate seminar]

Winter Semester 2023-24

(Right-Wing) Populism in Europe [undergraduate seminar]

Politische Partizipation im Rahmen der Europäischen Union [undergraduate seminar]

• Poststructuralist discourse theories as well as subjectivation and governmentality research
• Production and (de-)politicization of knowledge
• Theories of European (dis)integration
• Society, politics and party (communication) in the USA
• EU migration, border, democratization and neighbourhood policy

Presentations

2023

• Epistemic polarization and the struggle over political order: The example case of post-2020 election challenging activism in Arizona, Southern Political Science Association Annual Conference, St. Pete, Januar 2023.

2022

• „Problematizing modern democracy in the United States: An ‘insurrection of subjugated knowledges‘ in the wake of the 2020 presidential elections“, IES Research Colloquium, University of California, Berkeley, November 2022.
• „Lost in translation? The European Commission’s legal and political language in migration management“, University of Opole, Poland, digital, November 2022
• „Pennywise coming for democracy? How the ‘clown show‘ of private post-election audits challenges the rationality of political system“ bei der ECPR General Conference 2022, Innsbruck, August 2022
• „Early pro-integration politicization in the field of migration: The European Commission’s quest for effective Schengen borders before the ‘migration crisis‘“, 9th European Workshops in International Studies: The Interconnected Worlds of the Past and the Present: Co-Constituting the International, Thessaloniki (hybrid), Juli 2022
• „Intra-EU Politicization and Crisis: The Struggle over (Dis)Integration in the Field of Migration“, Council for European Studies, 28th International Conference for Europeanists, Panel: The Politics of Regionalism and Regional Identities, digital, Juni 2022

2021

• “Eine historische Überraschung, aber keine Lektion?”, Akademietagung “Kurzer Frühling – langer Winter? Der ‘Arabische Frühling’ und seine Folgen”, digital, Februar 2021

2020

• „Governing meaning, governing migration: (Dis-)integrative struggles and the current EU crisis“, Tagung Theorising the EU’s Crisis des Arbeitskreises Europäische Integration und des Fulda Research Centre for Intercultural and European Studies, digital, Dezember 2020

• „Die ‚Migrationskrise‘ zwischen Desintegration und EUropäischer Selbst-Sicherung – Zur Replikation und Kontestation von national(istisch)en Souveränitätsdiskursen durch die Europäische Kommission“, Kolloquium Diskursforschung HSU, Hamburg, Januar 2020

2019

• „Transnationale Migrantenströme und defizitäre Nationalstaaten – Die EU als natural choice zur Ausübung von Verantwortung, Solidarität und Souveränität in der ‚Migrationskrise‘?, 26. Internationaler DAVO-Kongress, Hamburg, Oktober 2019.

• „The EU and its sub-Self Others –The struggle against disintegration in the context of the ‚migration crisis’“, 9th International Euroacademia Conference Europe Inside-Out: Europe and Europeanness exposed to plural observers, Dublin, Juni 2019.

2018

• „Alternative Bedingungen für die Validität von Wissen – Common sense und Geschlechter-Beziehungen im rechtspopulistischen Diskurs“, Jahrestagung der Assoziation für kritische Gesellschaftsforschung mit dem Titel „Antidemokratische Konservative. Feinde einer offenen, solidarischen und gleichberechtigten Gesellschaft“, Hamburg, Dezember 2018.

• „‚Securing the Self‘ durch offene Grenzen – Zur Mobilisierung westphälischer Wissenskategorien durch EU-Institutionen im Gegendiskurs zu Renationalisierungstendenzen in Europa“, Hamburger IB-Kolloquium, Hamburg, Oktober 2018.

• „‚Gender ideology‘ as part of the populist Zeitgeist  – The Depoliticization of Gender Relations or How Right-Wing Populist Parties Empower Women to Embrace Natural Inequalities“, 12th Pan-European Conference on International Relations, Prag, September 2018.

• „Modern Othering Practices of a ‚Post-Modern‘ Polity – The Assertion of an EU identity vis-à-vis Migrants and Member States“, 12th Pan-European Conference on International Relations, Prag, September 2018.

• „Rewriting Truth and Establishing a New Sovereign Epistemological Center – The Alternative für Deutschland and its fight against ideology, irrationality and coercion“, European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) General Conference, Hamburg, August 2018.

2017

• „The construction of a EUropean identity against the backdrop of the ‚migrant crisis'“,11th Pan-European Conference on International Relations, Barcelona, September 2017.

• „Practicing ‚foreign policy‘ to secure the Self. The representation of migrants in EP Euro-Med discourse“, 4th European Workshops in International Studies, Workshop International Relations and Migration, Cardiff, Juni 2017.

• „Zur konstitutiven Funktion von Fremdsetzungspraktiken der EU im Kontext von Migration im Euro-Mediterranen Raum“, Kolloquium Demokratieforschung, Helmut-Schmidt-Universität/Universität der Bundeswehr Hamburg, Mai 2017.

2016

• „Die neue Europäische Nachbarschaftspolitik: Depolitisierte Zusammenarbeit – Wiederholung alter Fehler oder Schlüssel für die Zukunft?“, Jahreskolloquium 2016 des Arbeitskreises Europäische Integration e.V. zum Thema „Der Beitrag der Europäischen Union zur Stabilisierung des Nahen Ostens und Nordafrikas“, Universität  Mannheim, Dezember 2016.

• „Identities, interpretations and expectations – External Relations and Expectations of the EU towards the MENA”, Global Politics Seasonal School Jordan 2016 der FU Berlin und der German Jordanian University zum Thema “A Disaster in the Making? – Migration Politics in the MENA and Europe”, Amman, Jordanien, Oktober 2016.

2015

• „The post-2010 representation of migrants in EP and Commission discourses“, Akademischer Workshop ‚Fortress Europe? Rethinking Asylum Policies and Migration in the Euro-Mediterranean Political Space‘, veranstaltet im Rahmen des Dahrendorf Forums an der Helmut Schmidt-Universität/Universität der Bundeswehr Hamburg, November 2015.

• „Partnership of Equals? How the European Union Constructs its Mediterranean Other(s)“, 22. International Conference of the German Middle East Studies Association (DAVO), Ruhr-Universität Bochum, September 2015

2014

• „EU-Demokratieförderung im Mittelmeerraum – Lerneffekte nach dem ‚Arabischen Frühling‘?“, Kolloquium Demokratieforschung, Helmut Schmidt-Universität/Universität der Bundeswehr Hamburg, Dezember 2014.

• „The European Union´s perception of political Islam in the Mediterranean Region after the Arab Spring: Has the EU changed its mind?”, Fourth World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies (WOCMES), Ankara, August 2014

• „The EU and the Arab Spring“, Europäische Akademie Otzenhausen, Juli 2014

• „Euro-Mediterranean Relations after the Arab Spring – Which kind of democracy for export?“, 7th International Conference on Mediterranean Studies, Athen, April 2014.

2013

• „Lessons learned? EU democracy promotion after the Arabellions“, 32. Deutscher Orientalistentag, Münster, September 2013.

• „Die Europäischen Union und der ‚Arabische Frühling'“, Workshop ´Europa in der Forschung`, RWTH Aachen, Januar 2013.

2012

• „Why Libya, but not Syria? The EU, the Arab spring and R2P interventions.“ Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence 2012 Workshop, King´s College, London, Oktober 2012.

Conferences

2022

• Organisation und Leitung der Sektion „Rigging the System – Righting the System: Dimensions of a constitutional, political and societal crisis in the United States“ bei der ECPR General Conference 2022, Innsbruck, August 2022, gemeinsam mit Prof. Dr. Jared Sonnicksen (RWTH Aachen)
• Organisation und Vorsitz des Panels „(De)Politicization as the undercurrent of the creeping autocratization in the United States II – Epistemological diversification and the delegitimization of policies, politics and polity“ bei der ECPR General Conference 2022, Innsbruck, August 2022
• Organisation und Leitung des Workshops „New perspectives on an old acquaintance: Exploring the boundaries of politicization in the context of European (dis)integration“, 9th European Workshops in International Studies: The Interconnected Worlds of the Past and the Present: Co-Constituting the International“, Thessaloniki (hybrid), Juli 2022, gemeinsam mit Dr. Daniel Schade (Cornell University)

Publications

Polarization, in: Nai, Alessandro, Max Grömping, and Dominique Wirz (eds.): Elgar Encyclopedia of Political Communication. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, forthcoming 2025, with Jakob Wiedekind.

'After Neoliberalism' and on the 'Dark Side'? Governmentality and Counter-Conduct in Times of Growing Autocratisation, in: Global Society, 2024, https://doi.org/10.1080/13600826.2024.2401552

The Divided State of the States? Midterm Elections at the State Level, in: Duda, Renata and Maciej Turek (eds.): The Croassroads Election. 2022 Midterm and American Politics, London: Routledge, 2024, pp. 161-191, DOI: 10.4324/9781003440895-10, with Jared Sonnicksen.

A Conservative (R)Evolution? Constitutional–Political Crises, Trumpism, and Long-standing Trends of Conservative Transformations in the United States and Beyond, in: Politische Vierteljahresschrift/German Political Science Quarterly, 2024, DOI: 10.1007/s11615-023-00527-6.

Problematizing Modern Democracy in the United States: An ‘Insurrection of Subjugated Knowledges’ in the Wake of the 2020 Presidential Election, in: Politische Vierteljahresschrift/German PoliticalScience Quarterly, 2023, DOI: 10.1007/s11615‐023‐00486‐y.

The Crisis Discourse’s Blind Spot: EU‐level Politicization and the Endogenization of the Migration Crisis, in: Journal of European Integration, 2022, DOI: 10.1080/07036337.2022.2143497.

Whose vulnerability? EU identity formation processes and the risks of migration, in: Jünemann, Annette, Nicolas Fromm, and Hamza Safouane (eds.): Power in Vulnerability: A Multi‐Dimensional Review of Migrants’ Vulnerabilities, Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2021, pp. 49‐69, DOI: 10.1007/978‐3‐658‐34052‐0_3.

European (dis)integration and the will to govern. An analysis of the multi‐layered EU subject‐identity formation processes in the context of migration, Dissertation Helmut Schmidt University, 2020

Camp Nationalism, in: Sus, Monika and Franziska Pfeifer (eds.): European Union in the World 2025. Scenarios for EU relations with its neighbours and strategic partners, Hertie School of Governance and LSE Ideas: Dahrendorf Analysis, Berlin, 2016, ISSN 2398-4759, with Sena Staufer and Isabelle Werenfels.

Euro-Mediterranean Political Cooperation for the Promotion of Democracy: Comparing Pre- and Post-Arab Spring Approaches, in: Neuss, Beate and Antje Nötzold (eds.): The Southern Mediterranean. Challenges to the European Foreign and Security Policy, Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2015, 15-44, ISBN-10: 3848716097.

Der Arabische Frühling. Eine Analyse der Determinanten europäischer Mittelmeerpolitik, Wiesbaden: Springer VS, Springer Essentials, 2015, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-658-07020-5, with Annette Jünemann.

The European Union and its Southern Mediterranean Neighbourhood: What kind of democracy promotion after the Arab Spring?, in: L´Europe en formation, No. 371, 2014, pp. 58-81, DOI: 10.3917/eufor.371.0058.

Dilemmata der Europäischen Demokratisierungspolitik. Zur Wiederentdeckung der Zivilgesellschaft in der EU-Mittelmeerpolitik nach den Arabellions, in: Reder, Michael and Mara-Daria Cojocaru (eds.): Zukunft der Demokratie. Ende einer Illusion oder Aufbruch zu neuen Formen? Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. pp. 78-100, with Annette Jünemann.

Europa und die Arabellions: Zur Wiederentdeckung der Zivilgesellschaft in der EU-Mittelmeerpolitik, in: Stratenschulte, Eckart D. (ed.): Grenzen der Integration. Europas strategische Ansätze für die Nachbarregionen. Baden-Baden: Nomos, pp. 79-120, with Annette Jünemann.