Anja's research focuses on the transformation of democracy in Europe and on the European Union as socio-political regime. Her research explores questions of democratic regime change, of norm transformation and of contextualised standards for democratic 'quality'. To pursue these questions, Anja studies role-taking and practices of representation in parliamentary democracies. She is for example interested in the changes of Members of Parliaments' interactions with government, business and civil society actors at different levels of governance in the framework of European integration processes or under the pressure of populism as specific democratic morals inducing behavioural change.

Anja combines ethnographic work with systematic comparison across groups and time periods. Her work draws on different bodies of literature and ‘state(s) of the art’, in particular comparative democracy studies and parliamentary sociology, political economy, the sociology of institutions and the study of regimes.

D-EMU

Democratic elite perceptions of the Economic and Monetary Union

Shedding light on legitimacy conflicts within the EMU

The legitimacy of governance within the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) is controversial. Conflicts arise within the daily democratic practices of domestic policy elites, notably during the budgetary exercises of the European Semester, highlighting a considerable gap in existing literature. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the D-EMU project will apply a mix of interdisciplinary methods to examine four pivotal cases – France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. It hopes to considerably change our comprehension of legitimacy conflicts in the EMU and stimulate discussions on tailored democracy standards for EU decision-making depending on the socio-political regime at stake. By focusing on data sustainability in qualitative research, D-EMU endeavours to promote more systematic comprehension of democratic practices across different time periods. This is crucial to understand the processes of democratisation and dedemocratisation which we currently whitness in modern democracies.

101107703 - MSCA - Hochschule Fulda, European University Institute, Institut polytechnique de Paris