Before coming to Berlin, I studied at the University of Passau (BSc and BA), New York University (MA), and the University of Oxford (DPhil), and held postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Konstanz and Johannes Kepler University Linz.

My research has been published in New Political Economy, Comparative Political Studies, Governance, Global Environmental Change and Journal of European Public Policy.

Beyond academia, I comment on current events pertaining to my research. My popular writing has appeared in outlets such as Le Monde Diplomatique, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Die Welt, Capital, and Die Zeit.

My work looks at the politics of pension and financial systems. I’m particularly interested in the role of business actors (such as banks and insurers) in political processes. My main theoretical interests lie within institutional theory and discursive institutionalism. I probe into questions such as: How do actors use discourse to further their political goals? How do political ideas ‘travel’ across countries?

Peer-Reviewed:

"Bookkeepers of Catastrophes: The Overlooked Role of Reinsurers in Climate Change Debates," with Sebastian Kohl. Global Environmental Change (2024).

"Working with Ideas: Collective Bricolage, Political Tests and the Emergence of Policy Paradigms," with Martin B. Carstensen, Governance (2024), https://doi.org/10.1111/gove.12882.

"The Origins of Policy Ideas in German Pension Debates," Journal of Policy History, 36:4, (2024).

"The Other Side of Agency: Bricolage and Institutional Continuity," with Martin B. Carstensen, Journal of European Public Policy, 29:8, (2022), 1288-1308.

"Between Competition and Cooperation: Financial Incumbents and Challengers in German Pension Politics," Business and Politics, 23, (2021), 243-263.

"Capitalists against Financialization: The Battle over German Pension Funds," Competition & Change, 25:3-4, (2021), 428-452.

"Between Substantive and Symbolic Influence: Diffusion, Translation and Bricolage in German Pension Politics," Review of International Political Economy, 28:6, (2021), 1632-1651.

"Invasion from within: Ideas, Power and the Transmission of Institutional Logics between Policy Domains," with Martin B. Carstensen, Comparative Political Studies, 52:9, (2019),1328-1363.

"German Finance Capitalism: The Paradigm Shift Underlying Financial Diversification," New Political Economy, 23:3, (2018), 366-390.

"Financial Deglobalization: Resurgence of Nation States During and After the Great Recession," Journal of Political Inquiry, Spring Issue (2013).

Book Chapters:

"Die Suche nach Homo Ideologicus und anderen Gestalten: Was die Komparative Politische Ökonomie zu einem pluralistischen ökonomischen Diskurs beitragen kann," with Thomas Eibl. In Perspektiven einer pluralen Ökonomik. Wiesbaden: Springer Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften (2019), 281-312.

"Das neoliberale Paradoxon des deutschen Gangstaraps: Von gesellschaftlicher Entfremdung und der Suche nach Anerkennung," with Alexander Bendel. In Deutscher Gangstarap II: Popkultur als Kampf um Integration und soziale Ungleichheit, Marc Dietrich and Martin Seeliger (eds). Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag (2017), 105-132.