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Breitscheidstr. 2
70174 Stuttgart
Room: 4.97
Office Hours
On appointment via E-Mail
Subject
- Comparative political science
- Political attitudes and political behavior
- Local policy research
- Elections
- Direct democracy
- Democratic innovations
Why are people interested in politics, why do they get politically involved, and why do they support democratic norms, structures, actors, and processes? And how can the relationship between citizens and politics be strengthened in times of numerous challenges? These questions have concerned me for years. I study them primarily from a comparative perspective, with a focus on local politics. Here, the challenges facing democracy are just as visible as they are in national or international politics. Here, we have significantly more cases and greater variation to study analytically. And here, we can examine numerous practical examples specifically regarding their effects.
Methodologically, I primarily take a quantitative empirical approach to the various research questions I am interested in. Nevertheless, the use of qualitative and mixed-methods approaches is also necessary and beneficial for answering specific questions.
See OrcID
1996 – 2025
Lecture:
The political system of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG)
Seminar (MA)
Democratic innovations and political support
Citizens and participation in modern democracies
Representative, direct, and deliberative democracy
Participation, legitimacy, and acceptance
Democracy bottom-up: Long-term effects of political participation
Comparative policy analysis
Attitudes toward the EU in a European comparison
Good governance
Seminare (BA)
Research seminar “Challenges of Local Politics”
Local politics in a European comparison
Politics and society in the EU
A comparison of Western democracies
Neo-institutionalism in comparative political science
Structural arrangements of Western democracies
Fundamentals of comparative political science
Political culture in a European comparison
Political participation in Germany and France
Understanding political processes through the example of local politics
Local democracy in the Federal Republic of Germany
Size and Democracy
Media in the Federal Republic of Germany
The German Bundestag
Methodology seminars
Quantitative research practice I + II: Why more direct democracy?
Quantitative research practice I + II: Political participation
Quantitative research practice I + II: Further thinking the concept of democracy
Quantitative research practice I + II: A model for success: “direct democracy”?
Quantitative research practice I + II: Citizen – Elections – Democracy
Quantitative research practice I + II: Social capital and democracy
Social science analysis methods (SPSS)
Methods of empirical social research
Statistics
Introduction to multiple regression analysis
Academic writing
Since 08/2016
Academic Director, University of Stuttgart, Institute for social sciences.
Since 01/2014
Adjunct professor at the University of Stuttgart at the Institute for social sciences.
2012 – 2014
Visiting Professorship (W3), University of Stuttgart, Institute for social sciences.
10/2010
Habilitation in political science, University of Stuttgart
Topic: “The interplay between political institutions and political behavior: A study based on the example of local politics in Germany and Europe.”
06/2001
Ph.D. in political science (Dr. rer.pol.), University of Stuttgart;
Topic: “Local politics as a resource for democracy in Europe?” Summa cum laude.
2005 – 2016
Member of the executive committee of the ECPR and the EURA Summer School in Local Governance und Government Studies.
2005 – 2016
Lecturer at the ECPR and EURA Summer School in Local Governance and Government Stud¬ies in Madrid (ES), Gothenburg (S), Turin (I), Ghent (B), Lausanne (CH), Münster (D), Siena (I), Potsdam (D).
2000 – 2006
Spokesperson for the DVPW’s “Local politics research” working group, together with Prof. Dr. Hubert Heinelt, Prof. Dr. Jörg Bogumil and Prof. Dr. Sabine Kuhlmann.
12/2000 – 07/2016
(Senior) Lecturer, University of Stuttgart, Institute for social sciences.
10/1995 – 11/2000
Research fellow, University of Stuttgart, political science.
09/1989 – 09/1995
Master's degree program at the University of Stuttgart in political science and German
09/1985 – 08/1988
Bachelor's degree program in Business Administration at the Ravensburg University of Cooperative Education.
Der moderne Staat (dms)
Electoral Studies (ES)
European Union Politics (EUP)
European Journal of Political Research (EJPR)
German Politics (GP)
International Journal of Public Opinion Research (IJPOR)
International Journal of Public Sector Management (IJOPSM)
Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie (KZfSS)
Local Government Studies (LGS)
Neue Politische Literatur (NPL)
Public Administration (PA)
Political Behavior (PB)
2017 – 2019:
“Informal Public Participation Processes” database, State Ministry of Baden-Württemberg
2016 – 2017:
“Perceptions of the costs and benefits of informal public participation processes in politics, civil society, and public administration, and how these perceptions change as a result of the respective processes”, Thyssen-Stiftung
2013 – 2015:
"Effects of local citizen participation“, Baden-Württemberg-Stiftung
2005 – 2008:
“Voter turnout in the German federal states”, DFG
2003 – 2004:
“Directly elected mayors in Germany” (with H. van der Kolk and B. Denters, University of Twente, NL), Dutch Ministry of the Interior
1999 – 2000:
“Local and National Subjective Competence in Europe”, Thyssen-Stiftung