I am a PhD candidate and lecturer at Radboud University. I am currently finishing my PhD dissertation on the defence of democracy against incumbent-led autocratization, under the supervision of Prof. dr. Carolien van Ham and dr. Maurits Meijers. I have been a Visiting Research at the Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem) at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, and have previously worked at the Department of Public Administration at Leiden University. In addition to my research, I teach in the bachelor and master programmes Political Science at Radboud University, focussing mainly on methods.

Before starting my PhD, I worked as a Junior lecturer for the bachelor and pre-master PubliC Administration at Leiden University, where I received my University Teaching Qualification. I studied International Relations (BSc.), African Studies (BA., cum laude), and Political Science and Public Administration (MSc. res., cum laude) at Leiden University, with internships at the European Asylum Support Office, the International Institute of Social History, and the Netherlands National Commission for UNESCO.

Outside of workinghours (and occassionally during) I play cello, enjoy reading novels (with a preference for over-the-top and completely-predictable spy-novels), and running through the woods (training for marathons).

My main research interests are autocratization, democratization, public opinion, and legitimacy. As such, I mainly work on topics within Comparative Politics and Political Behaviour, with a strong emphasis on advanced and rigorous methods.

PhD Dissertation

In my PhD dissertation, I ask when democratically elected leaders autocratize, and specifically when and by whom they are opposed. I call these opposition actors “democratic defenders”, and research under what circumstances they stand up to defend democracy against these threats from the inside. In the dissertation, I use a multi-method approach to tackle this question from different angles, relying on in-depth casestudies, elite interviews, computational methods, and survey experiments. The planned submission date for the dissertation is December 2024.

Other projects

Next to my PhD dissertation, I am working on several projects related to citizen conceptions of democracy, the normalization of political violence, and the perceived bias of academics. I have presented much of my research at international conferences in Europe and the USA. If you are interested to read some of it (while it is not yet published), feel free to reach out!