Many of the world’s most pressing problems transcend the boundaries of political entities such as municipalities, regions, sub-federal units or nation-states. My appointment as a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair has enabled me to develop an emerging, multi-pronged research program that explores how federal systems – and more encompassing political spaces like the European Union – respond to transformative challenges like economic crisis, climate change or migration. I am forging an integrated intra-disciplinary research agenda capable of bridging sometimes rather isolated debates taking place in comparative federalism, “Europeanization”, regionalization, or the international political economy literatures. My research program is rooted in a comparative-historical framework. The results of this approach demonstrate that there is considerable potential to elucidate current real-world problems in a larger historical context.

Combining basic and applied research, I structured my research program around four broad topics:

1. The patterns and long-term effects of federal reforms
2. Federalism and the politics of market building (especially through internal and external trade policy)
3. Federalization – De-federalization: The construction and ending of federal systems
4. Theories and methods in the field of comparative federalism and multilevel politics

Over the course of the first term as a Canada Research Chair (2013-18), I launched four distinct projects within these four clusters. Most of my current research activities focus on Project (1) and Project (2). I try to develop Projects (3) and (4) whenever time permits.

Please click on each project to learn more about this research.