I am a Ph.D. student at the GSBS and a member of the working group's project "Nationalism and Democratic Backsliding," where we look at the role of nationalist historical legacies in episodes of democratic backsliding in Europe.
In my PhD-Thesis, I focus on democratic resilience and investigate when and to what effect elites of democratic parties use pro-democracy appeals in an effort to bridge increasingly polarized partisan divides and safeguard democratic rules of the game against encroachments from illiberal parties.
Besides the liberal democratic pushback against autocratization, I am interested in so-called hallmark- or mega-events like the European Capitals of Culture program, as well as natural experiments.