Welcome

Mandela House, Soweto, South Africa, 2024

I am a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Osnabrück at the Chair of Comparative Politics at the Institute of Social Sciences. In July 2025, I finished my PhD in the Department of Political Science at University College London (UCL). In Fall 2024, I was a visiting researcher at the Center for Political Studies (CPS) at the University of Michigan. My research interests lie at the intersection of comparative politics and contentious politics with a research agenda that evolves around the study of difficult-to-observe conflict processes. I try to better understand both formal and informal relations (coalitions, alliances) between conflict actors through the collection of original primary data during fieldwork and the analysis of this data through multi methods designs, using historical process tracing, network analyses and causal inference methods.

My dissertation analyzes organizational alliances and their impact on political transition in the anti-apartheid opposition in South Africa, examining how organizations build formal and diverse alliances when exposed to state repression. I leverage extensive archival data from three archives in South Africa, collected during fieldwork in 2024, and construct a dataset with formal and informal cooperative as well as competitive relations for 151 anti-apartheid organizations (political parties, trade unions, religious organizations, student organizations, civic organizations, armed organizations). My findings provide evidence that state repression induces the formation of especially diverse and formal alliances, especially between nonviolent and violent organizations and across movements. Archival insights suggest that organization leaders strategically distinguish and enter formal and informal relations, formalizing and diversifying their relations when facing repression. The findings underscore an enduring importance of organizational capacity and alliance building against authoritarian regimes today.

My research has been published in the Journal of Peace Research. Several other projects in progress evolve around the collection, analysis and measurement of conflict and repression (see Research page)