Research areas

I am a professor (with special responsibilities /wsr) in comparative European politics at the Department of Political Science and Public Management, University of Southern Denmark. I research the European polity—its institutional development and democratic legitimacy and resulting tensions of politicization and Europeanization – and the changing role of the sovereign and territorially defined state in Europe. My interests include the transformation of the European trading state, the evolution of EU legislative institutions, and the changing dynamics of EU policies and policy-making. Currently, I work on the project ‘Passage to Bicameralism: Probing Europe’s Legislative Power’, funded by the Carlsberg Foundation (monograph grant # CF20-0136, January 2021 – March 2022), and ‘Beauty Contests: The Changing Politics of Foreign Investment in Europe’, funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark (grant # 1028-00003B  August 2022 – July 2025). Before that, I was a co-investigator on the project ‘Democratic Legitimacy of the EU: Inside the Black Box of Legislative Trilogues’ funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC, ES/NO18761/1), as part of the Open Research Area (ORA) consortium.

Research interests

European Union institutions and policies; EU legislative institutions; investment screening mechanisms; European trading state; changing role and function of borders in Europe.