Biography

My research focuses on political violence and social (especially Islamist) movements, from a comparative perspective. This includes terrorism and insurgent violence, but also state violence and mechanisms of control. I am particularly interested in the role of relationships and interaction patterns in processes of radicalization and violent conflict, with a special emphasis on the relationship between militant groups and their constituencies. Planned research projects include a study on Islamist (Salafist) milieus in Europe, which analyzes interactions between Islamist milieus and certain parts of their social environment, focusing on the way in which they contribute to – and are in turn affected by – processes of radicalization, and on mechanisms of control (police control and social control) as one central aspect of these relationships.
Prior to joining the European University Institute as a Max Weber Fellow I worked as a researcher at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict and Violence (IKG) at the University of Bielefeld, Germany. Before that, I was a member of the Research Group Micropolitics of Armed Groups at Humboldt University, Berlin.
I studied political science, sociology, and international law at the universities of Augsburg and Bonn, and received a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Augsburg. My dissertation ‘Mobilizing the Faithful: The Relationship between Militant Islamist Groups and their Constituencies’ comparatively analyzes the development of al-Jamaa al-Islamiyya and al-Jihad (Egypt), and Hizbullah (Lebanon)