Welcome. I am a Political Science and International Relations scholar focusing on governance, legitimacy, and climate cooperation.
I am full Professor of International Relations at Stockholm University. I obtained my PhD in political science from the University of Mannheim (Germany) in 2011. Since then, I have been postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Political Science at Stockholm University and the Stockholm Resilience Center, and have held visiting fellowships at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University, the Department of Political Science at Trinity College Dublin, and the Department of Political Science at the University of Tampere, among others.
My PhD dissertation dealt with resource distribution for regional development through the European Union budget. Since then, I have written several articles and a book about European Union spending. My recent book examines the politics of EU spending and its effects on well-being (Is Europe Good for You? EU Spending and Well-Being,
Bristol UP, 2021), discussed here.
I have also investigated distribution and governance by other political institutions, such as domestic governments, the Arctic Council,
the United Nations, and the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM). For example, a forthcoming book with M.-T. Gustafsson deals with distribution and moral trade-offs in climate adaptation by private companies (The Moral Foundations of Private Adaptation. Evidence from the Mining Sector (Cambridge UP).
My work on legitimacy focuses on political trust and beliefs among citizen and elite beliefs about political institutions. This perceived legitimacy has considerable implications
for the democratic and effective governance of critical policy challenges, such as the low carbon energy transition. I am also interested in how citizen and elite beliefs are shaped by individual circumstances, such as individuals' social and economic environment.
I use interviews, survey data and experimental methods to investigate citizen and elite beliefs, including people in leading positions in business, civil society and the public sector. Recent books are Legitimacy Politics: Elite Communication and Public Opinion in Global Governance (Cambridge UP, 2023),
and Citizens, Elites, and the Legitimacy of Global Governance (Oxford UP, 2022), discussed here.
Links
Recent webinars about climate adaptation and international organizations at the Bolin Days or the London Climate Action Week
Associate editor of Political Studies and Interest Groups & Advocacy, and editorial board member for European Journal of Political Research