Welcome
I am Professor of Political Science, International Relations, at the University of Mannheim
and Director of the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES).
Providing new data and analyses, I investigate how the government and its formal and informal security apparatus shape the dynamics of such violence, paying particular attention to the role of monitoring and accountability. I tackle questions on why governments and agents of the state violate the basic right to physical integrity of their citizens. I examine the role of pro-government militias, how governance institutions regulate and influence various forms of state-sponsored repression and how individuals perceive their own security and human rights.
Much of my work stems from my research project RATE (Repression and the Escalation of Violence),
which was funded by the European Research Council (FP7/2007-2013)/ERC Grant Agreement No. 336019.
RATE analyzes when and under what conditions what types of human rights violations lead to the escalation or deterrence of further repression and armed conflict. The project pays particular attention to the delegation of violence to and within formal and informal armed groups and the role of domestic and international mechanisms of monitoring and accountability.
The pro-government militia (PGM) project aims to increase our understanding of these groups and to make their relationship to government more transparent. It also houses and updates the Pro-Government Militias Database (PGMD).
We are currently building a new database that documents journalist who were reported to have been killed between the 2002 and 2014.
The two sets of case studies are expected to provide causal leverage in empirically test the mechanisms tested with quantitative methods and to highlight weaknesses in the argument to generate new questions for future research.
Project team.
Click here for information about the team of the Chair in Political Science IV,
