This “basic” research is motivated by the challenge of conceptualizing and analyzing continuity and change in federal systems and multilevel systems more generally. This work has benefited tremendously from ongoing conversations and collaborations with excellent colleagues in Canada and abroad. For example, with Christopher Alcantara (Western University) and Jen Nelles (CUNY), I developed a new classification that constructs multilevel governance as one instance of multilevel politics that can be compared to others, most notably intergovernmental relations. With Mireille Paquet (Concordia University), I work on the question how comparative federalism research can develop more solid outcomes by utilizing recent innovations in the field of political methodology, most notably through process-tracing, case-study methods and causal mechanisms.

In collaboration with Bettina Petersohn (Swansea University) and Simon Toubeau (University of Nottingham), I co-edited a Special Issue for Publius: The Journal of Federalism on the prospects of comparative-historical analysis for the study of institutional change in territorial politics. Another volume (forthcoming, Palgrave 2019), co-edited with Nathalie Behnke and Jared Sonnicksen (both TU Darmstadt) aims to provide a comprehensive collection of cutting-edge trans-Atlantic contributions to the multiple perspectives of research on governing and governance in multilevel systems. The volume is inspired by and builds upon the intellectual opus of Arthur Benz, one of the most prominent and pioneering scholars in both the field of multilevel governance and the comparative analysis of governing in multilevel systems.