Expert Network

Anton Hemerijck is Professor of Political Science and Sociology in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence. Trained as an economist at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, he took his doctorate in Political Science from Oxford University. Between 2014 and 2017, he was Centennial Professor in the Department of Social Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) (United Kingdom). From 2001 to 2009 he was the Director of the Netherlands Scientific Council for Government Policy (WRR), the principal think-tank in the Netherlands. Thereafter, he was Dean of the Faculty of the Social Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam, before taking up his professorship at the EUI in 2017.Hemerijck has made important contributions to the  comparative study of social policy with particular reference to theorizing changing (European) welfare states in times of intrusive social and economic restructuring. His most cited publications include Changing European Welfare States (2013), the edited volume The Uses of Social Investment (2017), and the most recent book Who’s Afraid of the Welfare State Now? (2024), co-authored with Manos Matsaganis, all published with Oxford University Press. In 2020, he was awarded an European Research Council Advanced Grant for the reseaerch project Welbeing Returns on Social Investment Recalibration (WellSIRe). Over the years, he consulted several European governments, EU-institutions, and the OECD, on the future of social policy and the welfare state. He was a member of European Commission’s High-Level Group on the Future of Social Protection and of the Welfare State in Europe, which published its report in early 2023.

Valeriya Mechkova is an Assistant Professor in Political Science at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Her main research interests concern democracy and political representation, with a particular focus on women’s representation. She has previously worked at the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute and is currently a co-PI of the Digital Society Project (DSP), which aims to answer some of the most important questions surrounding interactions between the internet and politics. She has also worked as consultant for USAID, the World Bank, Community of Democracies, and International IDEA.

Prof. Dr. Marc Ringel is the Chairholder at the European Chair for Sustainable Development and Climate Transition at Sciences Po, Paris. As Chairholder, he contributes to conducting research and teaching courses at Sciences Po. Marc is full professor at Nuertingen Geislingen University, Germany. Furthermore, he is senior associate researcher with the University of Brussels, Belgium (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) and affiliated lecturer with Université d’Aix en Provence/Marseille, France. He leads multidisciplinary research on green transitions in the energy and climate field, focussing on the role of public governance.

Duncan Russel is a Professor in Environmental Policy at the University of Exeter, UK, and an Honorary Professor at the University of Aarhus, Denmark.

I trained as an interdisciplinary environmental scientist at the University of East Anglia (UEA). I then specialised in environmental politics at UEA through my PhD entitled “Environmental Policy Appraisal in UK Central Government: A political Analysis.” The thesis had an interdisciplinary approach drawing on perspectives from environmental science, economics, public administration, and politics. I was a Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Research at UEA from Oct 2004 until Jan 2009. During this time, I was awarded an ESRC Post-Doctoral Fellowship to help me disseminate my work on policy appraisal. I joined Exeter in February 2009 as a Lecturer under the Climate Change and Sustainable Futures strategy and have since progressed to full professor. I have held various leadership positions at the University of Exeter, including Head of the Politics Department the Associate Pro-Vice Chancellor for Education for the Faculty of Humanities, Arts, and the Social Sciences.

After training as an industrial administrator and in business management at the VWA in Bochum, Dr Thorsten Hellmann studied economics at the University of Münster and was awarded his doctorate in 2003. Since 2004, he has been working as a project manager for the Bertelsmann Stiftung, where he has spent several years analyzing national and international benchmarks for labor market, economic and social policy, as part of the Evidence-Based Policy Strategies program. He was i.a. responsible for the project “Benchmarking German States”, in which the German states were compared and assessed in terms of incomes, employment and security.

Christof Schiller heads the „Sustainable Governance Indicators“ (SGI) project. He joined the Bertelsmann Stiftung in 2016 and, in addition to the SGI project, also worked on two projects that develop long-term solutions for an inclusive and dynamic labour market and sustainable social security systems as part of the “Shaping Sustainable Economies” and “Future of Work” programmes. Christof earned his diploma degree and doctorate (Dr. rer. pol.) in Public Policy and Management from the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences of the University of Potsdam. He is the author of two monographs and numerous scientific articles, book chapters and policy reports. Christof has taught classes and held academic positions at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin and the University of Potsdam, where he remains an associated Fellow of the Potsdam Center for Policy and Management. The main focus of his research is on comparative welfare state reform, public sector governance and employment policies. His latest book is The Politics of Welfare State Transformation in Germany. Still a Semi-Sovereign State? (Routledge, April 2016).

Frank Bönker is professor in economics and public management at Saxonian University of Cooperative Education Riesa. After studying economics and political science at the Freie Universität Berlin, he worked at the Center for European Law and Policy (ZERP) at the University of Bremen and at European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (O). He has also taught at the Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Leipzig and Babeș-Bolyai-University Cluj-Napoca. His main fields of research have included welfare state reform, local social policy, post-communist economic reform and the Europeanization of East-Central Europe. His book publications on East-Central Europe include The Political Economy of Fiscal Reform in East-Central Europe (Cheltenham: Elgar, 2006) and Postsozialistische Transformation und europäische (Des-)Integration (co-editor, Marburg: Metropolis, 2008).

Martin Brusis is a senior researcher at Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca. His research has focused on the quality of democracy and governance in Central and Eastern Europe. Martin has also worked as a consultant and policy advisor with several governments, think tanks and international organizations. He has co-authored the concept and methodology of the Sustainable Governance Indicators. His work has been published in journals such as Comparative European Politics, Governance, Politische Vierteljahresschrift, Regional and Federal Studies, and West European Politics.

Aurel Croissant’s main research interests include the comparative analysis of political structures and processes in East- and Southeast Asia, the theoretical and empirical analysis of democracy, civil-military relations, terrorism and political violence. Aurel Croissant has published 21 monographs, edited volumes and special issues of German and international journals, and over 150 book chapters and journal articles. His research has been published in German, English, Spanish, Korean, Indonesian and Russian. His articles have appeared in refereed journals such as Party Politics, Democratization, Contemporary Southeast Asia, Asian Perspective, Electoral Studies, Pacific Review, Zeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft, Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft and Japanese Journal of Political Science.

Developing and coordinating the BTI project since its inception in 2001, Sabine Donner is still fascinated by its scope and the tremendous learning experience about democratization and governance trends it provides. She studied Political Science, Slavic Studies and German Literature in Freiburg and St. Petersburg. Transition processes in post-Soviet countries is her particular area of interest.

Thurid Hustedt is Professor of Public Administration and Management at the Hertie School. Her research focuses on public sector change dynamics, political-administrative relations and comparative public administration. Hustedt is the Managing Editor of the peer-reviewed journal dms – der moderne Staat (with Sylvia Veit). Previously, she was a visiting professor at the Freie Universität Berlin and a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Potsdam. She was a visiting researcher at the University of Bergen and the University of Toronto. Hustedt holds a PhD and a Diploma in Public Administration from Potsdam University.

András Inotai served as general director of the Institute for World Economics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Hungary from 1991 to 2011. Currently, he is research director and has been professor emeritus since July 2013. He has held several academic posts with various institutions, including the Kiel Institute of World Economy (1971) and San Marcos University in Lima, Perú (1972–1973). He has since 1993 been visiting professor at the College of Europe, Bruges and Natolin, and was visiting professor at Columbia University in New York (2002). He worked at the World Bank’s Trade Policy Division in Washington D.C. from 1989 to 1991, and headed the Strategic Task Force at the Hungarian Prime Minister’s Office from 1995 to 1998 in order to prepare Hungary for official negotiations with the European Union. Mr. Inotai’s research focuses on global and European economic issues, comparative economic development and the “integration maturity” of the new member countries and, most recently, on crisis management in the EU and the eurozone. He has been or is a member of several councils, including the Progressive Economy Initiative in the framework of the European Parliament and the TEPSA Board for several mandates.

Werner Jann holds the chair for political science, administration and organisation at Potsdam University (Germany), and is director of the Potsdam Center for Policy and Management (PCPM). His main publications are in the field of comparative public policy and administration, modernization of the public sector, better regulation and public governance. He has served on a number of government commissions addressing issues such as public sector reform and labor market administration. He is vice-president of the International Institute of Administrative Sciences (IIAS) in Brussels, past president of the European Group of Public Administration (EGPA) and was for eight years member of the UN Committee of Experts on Public Administration (CEPA) in New York. He has been a visiting professor at the School of Government, Victoria University, Wellington (New Zealand), and is adjunct professor at the Department of Administration and Organization Theory, University of Bergen, Norway.

Hans-Dieter Klingemann earned his academic degrees from the University of Cologne (1966: Dr. rer. pol.) and the University of Mannheim (1978: Dr. habil.). He has held academic posts at the Center for Survey Research (ZUMA), Mannheim (1974–1980), the Freie Universität Berlin (1980–2002), and many other universities in Canada, France, Italy, Germany and the United States of America. Since 1995 he has been a senior fellow of the Center for the Study of Democracy, University of California, Irvine. Currently he is an advisor to the Bahcesehir University Istanbul. His current research interests focus on political parties, party systems, democratic politics, and the development of political science as a discipline. Publications comprise numerous books (13), edited volumes (24) and more than 160 journal articles or book chapters (author or co-author). Among his major books and edited volumes are The Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (Hans-Dieter Klingemann, ed. 2009. Oxford: Oxford University Press), The Oxford Handbook of Political Behavior (Russell J. Dalton and Hans-Dieter Klingemann, eds. 2007. Oxford: Oxford University Press), The State of Political Science in Western Europe (Hans-Dieter Klingemann, ed. 2007. Opladen: Barbara Budrich), Mapping Policy Preferences II: Parties, Electorates and Governments in Eastern Europe and the OECD 1990-2003. (Hans-Dieter Klingemann, Andrea Volkens, Ian Budge, Judith Bara, and Michael D. McDonald. 2006. Oxford: Oxford University Press), A New Handbook of Political Science. (Robert E. Goodin and Hans-Dieter Klingemann, eds. 1996. Oxford: Oxford University Press), Citizens and the State. (Hans-Dieter Klingemann and Dieter Fuchs, eds. 1995. Oxford: Oxford University Press), Parties, Policies, and De-mocracy (Hans-Dieter Klingemann, Richard I. Hofferbert, and Ian Budge. 1994. .Boulder, Colorado: Westview), and Political Action (Samuel H. Barnes, Max Kaase et al. 1979. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage).

Rolf J. Langhammer was vice-president of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy from October 1997 until August 2012 and professor at the Kiel Institute. He retired from the vice-presidency on August 31, 2012 but continues to work at the Institute. He also teaches at the WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management, Vallendar. From April 2003 to September 2004, he served as acting president. From July 1995 to November 2005, he headed the research department Development Economics and Global Integration at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. In addition, he has been honorary professor in international economic relations and development economics at the Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Social Sciences, Kiel University since November 1995. Mr. Langhammer has served as consultant to a number of international institutions (EU, World Bank, OECD, UNIDO, ADB), as well as to the German ministries of economic affairs and economic co-operation. He is a member of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Federal Ministry of Economic Co-operation and Development. His research issues cover international trade patterns, trade policies, regional integration and international capital flows.

Hans-Jürgen Puhle is professor of political science at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main (em. 2009). Before he came to Frankfurt (1990,) he taught at the universities of Münster and Bielefeld, and has been a visiting scholar at numerous institutions in Europe and the Americas, among them Oxford, Cornell, Harvard, Stanford and Tel Aviv universities, Universidad de Chile Santiago, FLACSO Buenos Aires, Instituto Juan March Madrid, Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona. He received his PhD from the Freie Universität in Berlin (1965) and a Habilitation from the University of Münster (1973). Mr. Puhle has published widely in the fields of comparative social and political history of Western Europe, North and Latin America, comparative politics, varieties of capitalism and democracy, political parties and movements, nationalism, populism and democratization. His current research focuses on mechanisms of political intermediation and on the different trajectories of Western and non-Western societies into modernity.

Kai-Uwe Schnapp is professor of political science with a focus on research methods at the University of Hamburg, where he also heads the study program in political science. He studied political science and public administration in Berlin and Minneapolis and holds a doctorate (2002) from the Freie Universität Berlin. His publications focus on the comparative study of government bureaucracies and parliaments and, more recently, on minority issues.

Daniel Schraad-Tischler is Director, Program “Shaping Sustainable Economies”, at the Bertelsmann Stiftung in Gütersloh, Germany. He joined the Stiftung in 2008 and headed the “Sustainable Governance Indicators” (SGI) project. Daniel holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Cologne (Faculty of Management, Economics, and Social Sciences) as well as a master’s in Political Science, History and German Literature (Cologne). His main areas of research are good governance, sustainable development as well as cross-national comparisons of social justice and equality of opportunity. Before joining the Bertelsmann Stiftung, he worked as a research associate at the Jean Monnet Chair for Political Science and European Affairs at the University of Cologne. He also gained project management experience at the European Parliament and at Bayer AG.

Martin Thunert is senior research lecturer in political science at the Heidelberg Center for American Studies (HCA) at Heidelberg University (Germany). His teaching and research focuses on North America as well as on lobbying and policy advice, transatlantic relations and U.S. foreign policy. Mr. Thunert studied in Germany, the UK and Canada, has held academic positions in Germany and the United States (University of Michigan), and has worked as a staff assistant for the late U.S. Senator Edward M. Kennedy. He is the co-editor of Handbuch Politikberatung (Handbook on Policy Advice) and co-founder and co-editor of ZPB Journal for Policy Advice and Political Consulting.

Prof. Uwe Wagschal (*1966) is Professor for Comparative Politics at the University of Freiburg. He received his M.A. in Political Science (1992), his Diploma in Economics (1993) and his PhD in Political Science (1996) from the University of Heidelberg. In 2003 he became Professor for Political Science at the University of Munich and in 2005 at the University of Heidelberg. His main interests are public finance, direct democracy and political institutions. He is also author of a book about statistics for political scientists.

Zim Nwokora is an Associate Professor in Politics and Policy Studies at Deakin University where he currently serves as Course Director of the Bachelor of Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE). He is a comparative political scientist with expertise on constitutions, political parties and political finance. Recent projects include a study of how constitutions can be designed to deal with social change over time, the development of a framework to evaluate political finance reforms, and research on parliamentary ethics and culture. His work has been published in leading journals such as the British Journal of Political Science, Governance, International Journal of Constitutional Law, Party Politics, Political Research Quarterly and Political Studies. He holds BA, MPhil and DPhil degrees from the University of Oxford.

Ludger Helms (*1967) is Professor of Political Science and Chair of Comparative Politics at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. He has previously been a Senior Research Professor in the Department of Webster University and has held numerous visiting fellowships/professorships at, inter alia, Harvard, Barnard, Berkeley, the London School of Economics and Political Science, LUISS, Central European University, the University of Tokyo, Gadjah Mada University, and the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna. He is a member of the editorial/advisory board of several major journals (such as Government & Opposition; Politics & Governance; and Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Politikwissenschaft) and a referee for numerous international research councils, such as the German and Austrian Academic Exchanges Services, the Conseil de recherches en sciences humaines du Canada, EURIAS, and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research). He has published extensively on comparative political institutions, executive politics, elites, and political leadership.

Micael Castanheira holds a PhD in economics from the Université Libre de Bruxelles. He is a senior research fellow of the Belgian National Science Foundation and works at ECARES, a research center of the Université Libre de Bruxelles, where he teaches microeconomics and political economics. He also worked at the Bocconi University in Milan. His main research topics include the political economics of collective decisions, and of reforms. His work has been published in leading academic journals such as Econometrica, The Journal of the European Economic Association, The Economic Journal, International Economic Review, International Tax and Public Finance, and in several books. In addition to his scholarly activities, he is a member of the board of the Price Observatory of the Belgian government and acts as an economic expert for one of the main companies listed on the Brussels stock exchange.

Michael Howlett s Burnaby Mountain Professor and Canada Research Chair (Tier 1) in the Department of Political Science at Simon Fraser University. He specializes in public policy analysis, political economy, and resource and environmental policy. His articles have been published in many professional journals in Canada, the United States, Europe, Latin America, Asia, and Australia and New Zealand. Dr. Howlett currently edits the Annual Review of Policy Design, Policy Sciences, Policy Design and Practice, Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis and Policy & Society, as well as the University of Toronto Press Series in Comparative Political Economy and Public Policy, the Policy Press International Library of Policy Analysis, Cambridge Studies in Comparative Public Policy and Cambridge Elements of Public Policy. He is the founder of Research Committee 30 (Comparative Public Policy) of the International Political Science Association and sits on the Executive Committee of the International Public Policy Association.
His most recent book is Designing Public Policies: Principles and Instruments (New York: Routledge, 2024).

Lenka Buštíková is a Director of the Center for European Studies and Professor of Political Science at the University of Florida (UF). She grew up in Prague and previously taught at the University of Oxford and Arizona State University. Her research focuses on illiberalism, polarization, and democratic erosion. She is part of the East European Politics Group in the Department of Political Science at UF. Her book, Extreme Reactions: Radical Right Mobilization in Eastern Europe, received Harvard University’s Davis Center Book Prize in political and social studies. She is also a recipient of the Best Article Prize from the European Politics and Society Section and Best Paper Prize from the Comparative Democratization Section of the American Political Science Association. Dr. Buštíková currently serves as editor of the journal East European Politics. She is also an editor of Cambridge Elements on Politics and Society from Central Europe to Central Asia and Routledge Studies on Political Parties and Party Systems. She serves as Head of the Advisory Board for the Czech National Institute for the Study of Socioeconomic Impacts of Risks.

Robert Klemmensen is a professor of Comparative Politics at the Department of Political Science, Lund University. He specializes in voter behavior, party strategies and the interactions between political institutions and voter preferences. He serves as an associate editor for the journal Political Psychology and he has published in journals such as Comparative Political Studies, European Journal of Political Research and Psychological Science.

Triin Lauri is an associate professor of public policy at Tallinn University School of Governance, Law and Society. She holds a PhD in Government and Politics. From 2020 to 2023, Triin was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Konstanz, and in 2019/2021, she was a departmental lecturer in Comparative Social Policy at the Department of Social Policy and Intervention at the University of Oxford. Triin’s research is mainly focused on comparative social policy, with a particular interest in education policy and social investment policies. She has an extensive teaching portfolio and publishing record and is actively involved as an expert to facilitate knowledge transfer between academia and policy-making.

Heikki Hiilamo currently works at the Department of Social Policy, University of Helsinki. Heikki does research in Social Policy and tobacco control.

Emiliano Grossman is Full Professor of politics at Sciences Po and co-editor of the “European Journal of Political Research”.

Emiliano Grossman was born in Buenos Aires and grew up in Germany. He holds degrees from Sciences Po and the University of Cambridge. He has been a senior research fellow at Sciences Po since 2003, working now at the Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics (CEE). He is the co-convenor of the Master’s Programme in European Affairs. He teaches courses on EU politics, interest-group politics and comparative politics at Sciences Po.

His research concentrates on economic and financial regulation in the EU and political institutions. He has more generally focused on the variety of state-society relations in the EU and the challenges they are facing. At the same time, he has worked on the political systems of EU member states and the effects of the EU on politics, policy-making and political institutions in France. He recently co-edited a special issue for the 50iest anniversary of the French 5th Republic.

Friedrich Heinemann is head of the public finance department at the Center for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim (Germany). He received his PhD from the University of Mannheim and his Habilitation from the University of Heidelberg. His research interests include empirical public finance, and European integration and reform processes. Mr. Heinemann teaches at the University of Heidelberg, is a board member of the Arbeitskreis Europäische Integration and member of the Scientific Board of the Institut für Europäische Politik (IEP) in Berlin.

Dimitri A. Sotiropoulos is associate professor of political science at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration of the University of Athens and senior research fellow at the Athens-based think tank ELIAMEP. Mr. Sotiropoulos has studied law, sociology and political science in Athens, London and New Haven, CT (Yale PhD 1991). His publications include the volumes Is South-Eastern Europe Doomed to Instability?, (co-edited with Thanos Veremis), London: Frank Cass , 2002, and Democracy and the State in the New Southern Europe (co-edited with Richard Gunther and P. Nikiforos Diamandouros), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. In 2003 he was senior research fellow at the Hellenic Observatory of the London School of Econoics and in 2009–2010 visiting fellow in South East European Studies at the Centre for European Studies, St. Antony’s College, Oxford. He has also published articles on democratization, civil society, public administration and social policy in Greece, Southern Europe and the Balkans in international journals (European Journal of Social Policy, Social Policy and Administration, West European Politics, South European Society and Politics, Europe-Asia Studies, South East European and Black Sea Studies).

Jürgen Dieringer is associate professor for political sciences at the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences at the German-speaking Andrássy University Budapest. His major research areas are the countries of East- and Central Europe and European integration. His publications on Hungary include Das politische System der Republik Ungarn. Entstehung – Entwicklung – Europäisierung (Opladen, Barbara Budrich 2009), and Staatlichkeit im Wandel. Die Regulierung der Sektoren Verkehr, Energie und Telekommunikation im ungarischen Transformationsprozess (Opladen, Leske+Budrich 2001). He has contributed numerous articles on Hungary to journals such as Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen, Südosteuropa and the Hungarian Quarterly.

Mary Murphy is Professor in the Department of Sociology, Maynooth University, with research interests in ecosocial welfare, gender, care and social security, globalisation and welfare states, and power and civil society. She co-edited The Irish Welfare state in the 21st Century Challenges and Changes (Basingstoke, Palgrave, 2016) and Policy Analysis in Ireland (Policy Press 2021), and authored Creating an Ecosocial Future (Policy Press, 2023). An active advocate for social justice and gender equality, she was appointed to the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (2013-217), is currently a member of the Council of State in Ireland, Chair of Oxfam Ireland, and a member of EU and global academic and practitioner networks.

Ilana Shpaizman is a Senior Lecturer (US Assistant professor) at the Department of Political Studies, Bar Ilan University. She holds a PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and she did a post doc at the University of Austin at Texas. Her research interests are gradual policy changes, policy ideas, agenda setting, the policy process, immigration policy, and American and Israeli policy.

Giliberto Capano is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy. He has been (2003-2009) the Dean of Bologna University’s II Faculty of Political Sciences (located on the Forlì campus). He has been the Editor of the Rivista Italiana di Politiche Pubbliche (Italian Journal of Public Policy) and he is co-editor of Policy & Society. He has been member of the Executive Committee of the International Political Science Association (2009-2014) and the co-founder of the International Public Policy Association. Actually he is member of the Executive Committee of the European Consortium of Political Research. He has (co-)authored nine monographical studies and (co-)edited twelve books, while his work in English has been published in several books and in journals such as: Journal of Legislative Studies, Higher Education, Higher Education Policy, Higher Education Quarterly, Public Administration, Southern European Society and Politics, Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, Journal of European Public Policy, Comparative Education Review, Policy and Society, Policy Sciences, European Political Science, European Policy Analysis, Public Policy and Administration; Journal of Public Policy; Regulation & Governance; Policy & Politics, Political Science Review.

Karol Zakowski, PhD (2010) and habilitation (2016) in political science, is Associate Professor at the Department of Asian Studies, Faculty of International and Political Studies, University of Lodz. He specializes in decision-making processes and foreign policy of Japan. His recent monographs include: Decision-Making Reform in Japan: The DPJ’s Failed Attempt at a Politician-Led Government (Routledge, 2015), Japan’s Foreign Policy Making: Central Government Reforms, Decision-Making Processes, and Diplomacy (co-authored with Beata Bochorodycz and Marcin Socha, Springer, 2018), and Gradual Institutional Change in Japan. Kantei Leadership under the Abe Administration (Routledge, 2021).

Iveta Reinholde is the professor of public administration at the Department of Political Sciences of the University of Latvia. She has considerable experience in conducting policy evaluations, working in multi-national teams and international setting on such areas as public administration reform, internal audit, human security and public services. In addition, fields of her research include EU public policy, public policy evaluation and analysis, public sector organizations and organisation theory. She is experienced in advising and designing policy recommendations for national and local governments as she is a head of Public Council of National Audit Office. Since 2014, she is an independent expert for the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, Council of Europe. In 2019, she has been awarded with Alena Brunovska Award for Teaching Excellence in Public Administration (NISPAcee).

Ramūnas Vilpišauskas is a director and professor of the Institute of International Relations and Political Science, Vilnius University. He has been a visiting fellow at several universities in the United States (Syracuse University) and Canada (Carleton University), has been a Fulbright scholar at the Columbia University, conducted research at a number of European institutions including European University Institute (Florence). He has worked as a Chief Economic Policy Advisor to the President of Lithuania V. Adamkus and the Head of Economic and Social Policy Group (2004–2009), has also been appointed to coordinate the team of advisors to the President (2006–2009). He has an extensive list of publications on EU enlargement, transition reforms, policy analysis and European integration policies. One of his recent publications, “Eurozone Crisis and European Integration: Functional Spillover, Political Spillback?” appeared in the Journal of European Integration in April 2013.

Robert Hoppe is full professor of policy and knowledge at the Department of Science, Technology and Policy Studies, School of Management and Governance, University of Twente (Netherlands). His current research interests focus on practices of deliberative governance in an institutional environment of representative democracy, policymaking and policy analysis in transformational societies and polities, and comparative science-policy advisory architectures. In 2010 he published The Governance of Problems. Puzzling, Powering, and Participation (Policy Press, Bristol) and co-edited (with Hal Colebatch and Mirko Noordegraaf) Working for Policy (Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam). His most recent articles deal with post-nomal science (in Science, Technology and Human Values) and the role of international and national advisory institutes on global and national climate change policy ( in WIRE’s Climate Change). Hoppe serves on the advisory boards of Policy Studies Journal, Critical Policy Studies, Jaarboek Kennis en Samenleving, and Beleidsonderzoek Online.

Olli Hellmann is Senior Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Waikato, Aotearoa New Zealand. He specialises in the politics of Asia-Pacific, and has published extensively on issues of democratic quality and governance. Recent publications include Stateness and Democracy in East Asia (Cambridge University Press, co-edited with Aurel Croissant), “State capacity and elections in the study of authoritarian regimes” (special issue of International Political Science Review, co-edited with Aurel Croissant), and “The historical origins of corruption in the developing world: a comparative analysis of East Asia” (Crime, Law and Social Change).

Kåre Hagen is director at The Centre for Welfare and Labour Research at Oslo Metropolitan University. He is a political scientist, and his fields of research are comparative welfare state policies, public sector reform and implications of European integration on EU member states. He has had positions at the Department for Political Science at the University of Oslo and at the Norwegian School of Management (BI). Hagen if frequently used by Norwegian Governments to prepare reports on public sector reform.

Katarzyna Dośpiał-Borysiak, doctor habil., works at the Department of Political Systems in the Faculty of International and Political Studies at the University of Lodz (Poland). Her main areas of interest include sustainable development, climate policy, regionalism, and European integration. She is the author of monographs such as “State Climate Policy: The Norwegian Path to Sustainable Development” (Łódź, 2018) and “Air Protection in the European Union Member States: From Laggards to Pushers” (co-authored, Routledge, forthcoming, 2024), as well as numerous scientific articles published in monographs and national and international scientific journals. She co-edited the book “Civic and Uncivic Values in Poland” (CEU Press, 2018). Through European Economic Area Grants, she has conducted scientific research (at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim) and international educational projects (Entrepreneurial Youth for Green Europe). She was also a scholarship recipient from the Government of the Kingdom of Sweden. Member of the Scientific Council of the Polish Society for European Studies.

Sofia Serra-Silva is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon. She earned her PhD in Comparative Politics (Political Science) from the University of Lisbon (2020). In the spring semester of 2023, Serra-Silva held the position of FLAD Visiting Professor in the Department of Government at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Her academic path has been marked by significant stints as a visiting scholar at prestigious institutions such as Oxford University, the University of Leeds, and the University of Vienna, further enriching her intellectual and professional journey. Her scholarly work has earned publication in a variety of academic journals, including Policy & Internet, Party Politics, and The Journal of Legislative Studies. Sofia’s research spans a broad spectrum of subjects such as parliaments, political parties, political behavior, and public engagement. Her investigations delve into areas ranging from the electoral success of parties to the quality of democracy and the nuances of digital politics.

Filip Flaska is a graduate of the Faculty of Economics of the Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica (MBU), where he received the degree of PhD in 2008 in Public Economy and Services. He is an assistant professor at the Department of Public Economics and Regional Development of the Faculty of Economics of MBU, where he also worked as the head of the department (almost 8 years). In educational activities as well as scientific and research activities, he mainly deals with issues of public administration management, public finances, learning regions, rural development management and environmental management. He is the author or co-author of several scientific publications, scientific articles and contributions. He has professional experience in the field of local governments’ audit. He coordinated or participated on realization of several domestic and international research projects, as well as projects for practice in the field of public and local finance, decentralization of public administration, fiscal decentralization, regional development and ecosystem services.

Alenka Krašovec is a professor at the University of Ljubljana, holding the chair of public policy analysis and public administration.

Her research focuses on the politics of Slovenia and the former Yugoslav republics, Europeanization, democracy and party competition. Alenka Krašovec received her PhD from the University of Ljubljana in 2007.

Dr. Mario Kölling is Professor at Department of Political Science at the Spanish National Distance Education University (UNED), and senior researcher of the Manuel Giménez Abad Foundation, Zaragoza. From 2011 to 2014 he was Garcia Pelayo Researcher at the Centro de Estudios Politicos y Constitucionales (CEPC) in Madrid. He holds a Ph.D from the University of Zaragoza. Mario Kölling has been a visiting researcher at the Centre for European Integration of the Otto-Suhr Institute for Political Science in Berlin, the University College Dublin, the Institute for European Studies of the Free University of Brussels and the European University Institute in Florence.

In his research he analyzes the negotiations on the EU Multiannual Financial Frameworks. He works and publishes also on issues related to federalism and national and sub-national parliaments in EU affairs.

Evangelia Petridou is Associate Professor in Political Science, affiliated with the Risk and Crisis Research Center at Mid Sweden University. Petridou’s research focuses on policy studies, with a specific theoretical interest in theories of the policy process, networks and entrepreneurial agency, while her empirical interests center on crisis and emergency management. She has published in journals such as Policy Studies Journal, European Policy Analysis, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, Politics and Policy, and Policy and Society. Petridou is co-editor of International Review of Public Policy (IRPP).

Klaus Armingeon is full professor for comparative and European politics and director at the Institute of Political Science in Bern (Switzerland). He has worked at several academic institutions, including the universities of Konstanz, Mannheim, Heidelberg (Germany), Duke University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (United States) and Innsbruck (Austria). His main publications focus on welfare state policy, political economy, industrial relations, trade unions and political parties in comparative perspective, with a special emphasis on Switzerland. His recent publications include a chapter on fiscal and economics policies in the Handbook of Swiss Politics (2014), and articles on the fiscal responses to the great recession (Governance 2012), the loss of trust in the European Union (European Union Politics 2014), and the decline of support for national democracy in the recent recession (European Journal of Political Research 2014).

Iain Begg is a professorial research fellow at the European Institute, London School of Economics and Political Science. His main research work is on the political economy of European integration and EU economic governance. He has directed and participated in a series of research projects on different facets of EU policy and his current projects include studies on the governance of economic and monetary union in Europe, the EU’s Europe 2020 strategy and future employment prospects in the EU, and reform of the EU cohesion policy. Other recent research projects include work on policy co-ordination and the social impact of globalization. He is currently serving as a specialist adviser to the House of Lords European Communities Committee for an inquiry into “Genuine Economic and Monetary Union.” He has undertaken a number of other advisory roles, including being called as an expert witness on EU issues by the House of Commons Treasury Committee, the House of Lords European Communities Committee and the European Parliament.

Dr Richard Johnson is Senior Lecturer in US Politics and Policy at Queen Mary, University of London. He was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge (BA in Social and Political Sciences) and Nuffield College, Oxford (MPhil in Comparative Government, DPhil in Politics). He has previously been a lecturer at Lancaster University and has taught courses at Cambridge, Oxford, and Beijing Foreign Studies University.

His main research centres on race and democracy in the United States. This was the subject of his book The End of the Second Reconstruction (Polity, 2020), which uncovers the role of political violence, federalism, and the federal judiciary in sabotaging civil rights from the Civil War to the Trump presidency. He has published academic research on elections and campaigning in the US, including on the Voting Rights Act, the communication strategies of African American candidates, Black nationalism and electoral politics, fundraising strategies of working-class candidates, and the role of presidents in midterm elections, as well as on racially polarised partisanship, ‘white flight’ from the Democratic Party, and the Trump administration’s policies on voting rights and incarceration. He is currently writing a textbook on US politics (under contract with Bloomsbury) and a book about the first Black candidates to stand for office in predominantly white electorates between 1966 and 2006 (under contract with Columbia University Press).