Bio

I am a political scientist at the Centre for Democracy Studies Aarau (ZDA), University of Zürich, where I have been based since 2007. My work is broadly interdisciplinary, spanning comparative politics, political behaviour, political communication, comparative constitutional law, and computer science.

Background

I studied at the London School of Economics and Political Science and received my PhD in Political Science from the European University Institute in Florence, with a period at the University of California, Berkeley. Before joining the University of Zürich, I held research assistant positions at the European University Institute and the University of Geneva. I have also taught courses at the Universities of Geneva and Zürich, and at ETH Zürich.

Research

My research focuses on direct democracy, referendums, citizens’ initiatives, and constitutional design in comparative perspective. A large body of work examines voting advice applications — both their design and their effects on political attitudes and party preferences. I also draw on large-scale comparative surveys and survey experiments to study voting behaviour, political dimensionality, and the formation of political attitudes. A longstanding research theme has been internet voting, e-participation, and digital democracy, and more recently decentralised governance through blockchain technologies. A growing strand of my research addresses deliberative citizen forums, participatory budgeting, and civic engagement in sustainability transition.

I have led several projects funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and have been involved EU-funded research projects on e-participation, deliberative democracy, and civic participation (Horizon Europe). I used to head the [PreferenceMatcher] research consortium, a network of researchers developing and deploying voting advice applications (VAAs) across Europe. I now work closely with Digipols Lab at the Cyprus University of Technology in the development of VAA technologies.

Current affiliations

  • Senior Researcher, Centre for Democracy Studies Aarau (ZDA), University of Zürich (profile)

Previous positions

  • Director, e-Democracy Centre (e-DC), University of Zürich (2008–2014)
  • Research Assistant, Centre for Research on Direct Democracy (c2d), University of Geneva (2004–2007)