Research Interests

• Voting Behavior
• Political Polarization
• Welfare State Regimes
• US Economy
• US Domestic Politics
• Transatlantic Relations

Education

Summer Schools

07/2012 – 08/2012

“America in the 21st Century: Crises, Challenges and Chances”, Freie Universität Berlin International Summer and Winter University (FUBiS), Germany

Geographies of Discontent - Public Goods Provision and Anti-Establishment
Voting in the US, UK, and Germany (Dissertation Project)

Dissertation in Politics

Mentoring team:
First supervisor: Prof. Dr. Christian Lammert
Second supervisor: Prof. Dr. Boris Vormann
Third supervisor: Prof. Dr. Rainer Danielzyk

The underlying causes of the recent phenomenon of anti-establishment voting in Western democracies have become a strongly debated topic in political science and adjacent fields. While some argue that the rise of populism and populist leaders have been driving factors, others attribute this phenomenon to growing xenophobia and/or increased hostility towards globalization.

Thus far, all explanatory attempts have fallen short of adequately addressing what is perhaps the largest piece of the puzzle: the temporal congruence and similarity in regional voting patterns of growing anti-establishment support across a number of Western democracies. My research project aims to fill this knowledge gap by conducting a comparative case study of the US, the UK, and Germany. Specifically, I plan to analyze the changes in the provision of public goods and services in the regions that have seen the most support for anti-establishment policies or candidates over time, since there is preliminary evidence hinting towards a relationship between these two variables. Choosing this approach will allow me to trace systemic developments using large, diverse databases while developing a theoretical framework that enables cross-country comparisons.

In order to trace these developments, my analyses will make use of multiple data resources including historical local, regional, and national government policies that have affected the provision of public goods, as well as economic data on the extent to which private actors have taken over the roles of public goods providers in recent years. In order to account for the perspectives of the individuals living in these regions of analysis, I also intend to conduct a number of qualitative, semi-standardized expert interviews.

The working thesis of my project is that because of the continuous privatization of public goods and services and an inadequate replacement of them by private actors, growing parts of the population in specific regions of the investigated countries have become increasingly discontent with the economic and political system, expressing their frustration by voting for anti-establishment policies and candidates.

Conferences