Welcome! I am an Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department at Utah State University. My work centers on the intersection between political behavior and party politics with a special focus on the role of social movements in shaping political parties. I received my Ph.D. from the Department of Government at Cornell University in 2017. My research has been published in Government and Opposition, the Journal of European Integration, and the Journal of Political Science Education.
In my book manuscript I explore why contemporary European parties with movement roots have neither followed the lead of older movement parties like the Social Democrats by adopting an electoral-professional party model, nor retained their organizational connections to movement organizations. I show that the saturated party systems in Europe empower social movement organizations vis-à-vis the parties they spawned, allowing movements to hold parties programmatically to account. Thus these movements and parties counterbalance the trend towards catch-all and cartel parties and thereby (re-)integrate disaffected citizens into the democratic process. This equilibrium only breaks down when mainstream parties weaken and thus allow movement parties a path to major party status, as illustrated by recent developments in Southern Europe.
I have conducted extensive fieldwork in Sweden and Germany, supported by a Luigi Einaudi Fellowship. I hold a M.A. and B.A. in Political Science from the University of Bremen in Germany and studied at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.
In my book manuscript I explore why contemporary European parties with movement roots have neither followed the lead of older movement parties like the Social Democrats by adopting an electoral-professional party model, nor retained their organizational connections to movement organizations. I show that the saturated party systems in Europe empower social movement organizations vis-à-vis the parties they spawned, allowing movements to hold parties programmatically to account. Thus these movements and parties counterbalance the trend towards catch-all and cartel parties and thereby (re-)integrate disaffected citizens into the democratic process. This equilibrium only breaks down when mainstream parties weaken and thus allow movement parties a path to major party status, as illustrated by recent developments in Southern Europe.
I have conducted extensive fieldwork in Sweden and Germany, supported by a Luigi Einaudi Fellowship. I hold a M.A. and B.A. in Political Science from the University of Bremen in Germany and studied at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.
