Research

RESEARCH INTERESTS

My research interests lie in the field of comparative politics. More specifically, my research focuses on minority cabinets, political parties, institutions, coalition governments, parliaments, and corruption perception.

MINORITY GOVERNMENTS

How to govern without controlling a legislative majority? How can cabinet and non-cabinet parties influence policy outcomes? Why do parties enter strong government support agreements? What are the effects of different types of minority cabinets on legislative control and cabinet stability? Though a third of all governments in established parliamentary democracies is formed by minority governments, there has been little comparative research after Kaare Strøm’s seminal work in 1990. For my dissertation project, I collected rich data on minority cabinet attributes, support party attributes, and support agreements. In my thesis and various articles with co-authors, I shed light on minority governments in comparative perspective.

Publications:
– PhD Thesis: Policy-making under minority cabinets: How non-cabinet parties influence public policies (at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
– The formalisation of minority cabinets, online first, in West European Politics (Special Issue, with Svenja Krauss)
– Small but powerful? The legislative performance of minority cabinets, 2022, in Legislative Studies Quarterly, Vol. 47 (1), pp. 193-224
– Stability of minority governments and the role of support agreements, 2022, in West European Politics, Vol. 45 (4), pp. 767-792 (with Svenja Krauss)
– Under the Influence: Pay-Offs of Legislative Support Parties under Minority Governments, 2021, in Government and Opposition, Vol. 56 (1),  pp. 121-140 (with Veronica Anghel)
Available working papers:
– Policy-making under minority cabinets: How non-cabinet parties influence public policies (book manuscript)
– In for a penny, in for a pound? Do perceptions of support parties shift with governing coalition partners (with Matthew Bergman and Svenja Krauss)
– The electoral implications of minority cabinets (with Heike Klüver)

COALITION GOVERNMENTS (& POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS)

Coalition governments shape the political life in most established parliamentary democracies. To understand the circumstances that affect which type of cabinet forms and the partisan dynamics which impact the stability of governments is therefore of highest interest. In my research, I also look at the interplay of political institutions and coalition governments. Which influence do institutions have on government formation? And how do coalitions make use of legislative institutions such as committee chairs?

Publications:
– Institutional constraints on cabinet formation: Veto points and party system dynamics, in European Journal of Political Research, Vol. 60 (2), pp. 295-316 (with Johan Hellström & Holger Döring)
– Extra-coalitional policy bargaining: investigating the power of committee chairs, in The Journal of Legislative Studies, Vol. 27 (1), pp. 93-111 (with Svenja Krauss & Katrin Praprotnik)
Available working papers:
– Exit Options and Cabinet Stability with (Jochen Rehmert & Mingyi Zhang)
– Cabinet formation on the state level. Evidence from Germany (Katrin Praprotnik & Svenja Krauss)
– Coalition heuristics in multi-level systems (with Ida Hjermitslev and Svenja Krauss)

CORRUPTION PERCEPTION & ANTI-CORRUPTION MESSAGES

How is corruption perceived in Bulgaria? Who has to be the sender of anti-corruption messages for the electorate to believe in government efforts? And who reports corruption to the authorities? In cooperation with the Basel Institute on Governance, we analyze corruption perception in Bulgaria. The first survey was fielded in February 2023. The survey results and descriptive analyses have been published in the working paper series by the Basel Institute on Governance.

Publications:
– Perceptions of corruption and anti-corruption efforts in Bulgaria: Results of a national survey 2023, Working Paper 44, Basel Institute on Governance (with Stefanie Bailer)