Research and Projects

My research focuses on multilevel policy-making, the European Union and its institutions, international bureaucracies, the Europeanization and internationalization of public administration and organizational change in public administrations.

My current research projects are:

Populist Public Administration

The goal of the project is to analyze what happens under authoritarian populist rule to democratic administration. Authoritarian strategies of administrative regression are conceptualized as anti-pluralist challenge for democratic public-administration systems, and yardsticks are developed to measure how contemporary bureaucratic backsliding can be empirically identified. Anti-pluralist administrative regression encompasses purposeful bureaucratic transformations toward administrative centralization, disciplining and cleansing staff, dissolving norms of service neutrality, and discrediting social participation. How the populist transformation impacts on policy output is also a matter of investigation.

FUGATUS – Flüchtlingsgovernance und Wissenstransfer

The FUGATUS project is part of the WITI (“Wissens-und Ideentransfer für Innovationen in der Verwaltung”) project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. The project analyses the refugee management of local public administrations in Germany and examines emerged innovations, networks and cooperations between the public and private sector, society, and science. With the help of three partners, the city of Frankfurt am Main, the city of Speyer and the city of Viernheim, expert interviews and a following online survey are carried out, and detailed case studies are conducted.  (Link)

Determinants and Consequences of Bureaucratic Autonomy of International Public Administrations

The project analyses the role of the bureaucracy in international organisations. It looks for to give answers to the questions whether and under which conditions international bureaucracies enjoy and use autonomy, how observable variance concerning administrative autonomy between international organisations can be explained and under which conditions does administrative autonomy influence policy outcomes. Methodologically, the project follows a mixed-method approach that combines indicator-based comparison with in-depth case studies. (Link; Link to the Research Unit)

Surveying the EU Civil Service

In this project, we assess in the light of recent challenges how well the EU Commission and the Council administration are equipped to face the future. Amongst others, questions like the following are asked: Do the supranational administrations have a workforce appropriate to their missions? Can the organizations attract well-qualified recruits in an increasingly competitive labour market? Do staff think that the European bureaucracy’s communication is effective?

The project draws on fieldwork conducted by the research team in 2014 and 2016. The first project conducted by independent researchers to be based on a representative study across all categories of staff, our findings draw on several sources, including responses to an online survey administered to all Commission and Council secretariat personnel, face-to-face interviews, and focus groups. (Link)