I was born in the Netherlands, where I got my MA and PhD at Leiden University. I held tenure-related position at Central European University (Budapest, Hungary), the University of Edinburgh (UK), and the University of Antwerp (Belgium). I moved to the US in 2008, where I was a visiting professor at the University of Oregon (2008-9) and a visiting fellow at the University of Notre Dame (2009-10). My work is primarily conceptual and empirical with a prime focus on Europe. The bulk of my research has been within the field of extremism and democracy, particularly radical right parties. Secondary interests include civil society, conceptualization, democratization, Euroskepticism, political parties, and political ideologies. I am currently working on two new research projects in comparative politics. My first major project builds upon my previous research on political challengers to liberal democracy, but tries to answer the crucial question: How can liberal democracies defend themselves against extremist challenges without undermining their own core values? Building upon an earlier developed typology of extremist challenges to liberal democracy, which distinguishes between the aims and means of the challengers, I aim to answer this question from both an empirical and normative perspective, looking for as well as developing 'best practices'. The second project entails a cluster of articles and (edited) books on populism and democracy, mostly with a (pan-)European and (pan-)American focus. The underlying goal of these projects is to come to broader understandings of populism in general, and its ambivalent relationship to liberal democracy in particular, by employing cross-national and cross-regional comparisons.
Concepts & Methods
Data Usage in Quantitative Comparative Politics (with Andreas Schedler), Political Research Quarterly (2010)
The quantitative study of comparative politics is often described as a data-driven enterprise. Employing an...
Extremism & Democracy
Civil Society
Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe: Lessons from the 'Dark Side', Uncivil Society? Contentious Politics in Post-Communist Europe (2003)
Rethinking Civil Society, Democratization (2003)
Most studies of civil society are mainly normative, both in their conceptualization and in their...
Uncivil Society? Contentious Politics in Post-Communist Europe (with Petr Kopecky) (2003)
This volume makes a significant contribution to the debate about the development of post-communist civil...
Democratization
Upping the Odds: Deviant Democracies and Theories of Democratization (with Renske Doorenspleet), Democratization (2008)
This concluding article tries to integrate the different insights of the individual case studies of...
Explaining Different Paths of Democratization: The Czech and Slovak Republics, Journal of Communist Studies and Transition Politics (2000)
Since the ‘velvet split’ in January 1993, the Czech and Slovak Republics seem to have...
What Has Eastern Europe Taught Us About the Democratisation Literature (and Vice Versa)? (with Petr Kopecky), European Journal of Political Research (2000)
The relationship between Eastern Europe and democratisation studies so far has been highly asymmetric. In...
Euroskepticism
Sussex v. North Carolina: The Comparative Study of Party-Based Euroscepticism (2011)
Since the late 1990s a true cottage industry of "Euroscepticism studies" has emerged, which has...
The Two Sides of Euroscepticism. Party Positions on European Integration in East Central Europe (with Petr Kopecky), European Union Politics (2002)
This article aims to make a three-fold contribution to the study of Euroscepticism in the...
Parties & Party Systems
EU Accession and a New Populist Center-Periphery Cleavage in Central and Eastern Europe (2003)
The finalized “Return to Europe” of the new EU members states of Central and Eastern...
The Party Family and Its Study, Annual Review of Political Science (1998)
Although the notion of the party family, with the various cross-national and cross-temporal similarities it...
Conservatism
Other
The Right and the Righteous? European Norms, Domestic Politics and the Sanctions Against Austria (with Michael Merlingen and Ulrich Sedelmeier), Journal of Common Market Studies (2001)
In February 2000, fourteen EU member states collectively took the unprecedented step to impose bilateral...