I have three main interconnected research interests.
My research examines military institutions, their variation and operation, and their normative justifications. A special emphasis of my research is on the idea of substantial citizen involvement in the military – for example, through forms of conscription – its relation to civilian control and military effectiveness, and likely trade-offs between those.
I also work on theories of citizenship, with a focus on the obligations of citizens. I focus on various normative theories of civic duty, including republicanism and civic liberalism, and their institutional applications.
A further strand of my research concerns the theory and practice of taxation. I am especially interested in the link of taxation to conceptions of citizenship, democracy, and redistributive justice.
I explore these research interests through the means of institutional political theory. This approach bridges political science and political theory by placing formal institutions, their logic, variation, and ethical evaluation front and centre. Being trained as a political scientist and historian of political thought, I bring a strong empirical and historical sensibility to these matters.
Shared Burdens? Civic Duty, Democracy, and the Nation-State in Modern Germany and America (book manuscript, in preparation for submission)
Paper on the Intellectual History of German Military Conscription (revise and resubmit)
Paper on Mandatory National Service (under review)
‘Evaluating Military Institutions: Towards a New Framework’ (writing stage)
‘Conceptualising Civic Duty’ (writing stage)
The Democratic Military: Reimagining the Armed Forces in Times of War
Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford | Faculty Host: Tom Simpson |Supported by a Walter Benjamin Postdoctoral Fellowship of the German Research Foundation (DFG)
The research project examines the character, normative credentials, and potential reform of standing military establishments (SMEs) in liberal democracies, chiefly in the Western world. It aims to address an underexplored issue in political theory, leveraging the latter’s potential to provide insights into the factual and desirable character and role of the military in liberal democracies. The project title’s term “democratic military” captures part of this endeavour, referring both to SMEs in liberal democracies and to the extent democratic principles and practices are (or could be) embodied within those institutions.
The project’s objectives are threefold. First, to provide a better understanding of the varied roles and designs of SMEs in liberal democratic settings. Second, to arrive at a normative assessment of the different military arrangements identified, offering reasons to favour some over others. And third, in light of the institutional and normative analysis, to explore potential reform options and public policy recommendations.
Contributing to the Commonwealth. Civic Duties in Modern Germany and the United States
182,000 words | Defended in April, 2023 | Thesis committee: Tine Stein, Dario Castiglione, Marcus Llanque | Awarded the grade summa cum laude, and the Faculty of Social Science’s 2023/24 award for best doctoral dissertation
My dissertation inquires into modern formulations of the duties of citizenship. This is done by entertaining a historical and theoretical approach geared towards better understanding and appreciating one fundamental aspect of modern democratic societies and their polities. More specifically, I analyse and contrast intellectual and institutional formulations of civic duties in two of the most influential modern democratic societies in the Western world: Germany and the United States of America, chiefly from the end of the nineteenth century to the most recent past. A particular emphasis is on the intellectual and institutional development of three core civic duties in the two national contexts: taxation, military service, and schooling. These three duties are, or were, the most important and most burdensome legal burdens placed upon a great number of citizens in these two national contexts, and, partly for that reason, feature very prominently in the respective collective consciousness and corresponding political debates.
By means of this historical and theoretical inquiry, I pursue five interrelated objectives: first, I provide a more general systematic and comprehensive analysis of civic duties. Second, I reveal the connection of the core civic duties with modern state development and nation-making. Third, I reconstruct and reconsider diverse traditions and instances of political thought from the late 19th to the early to mid-20th century that articulate the ethical foundation and institutional realisation of civic duties. Fourth, I inquire into the seemingly rather recent relative demise of civic duties in public political and academic thought in the last couple of decades. And fifth, building upon the analyses, I reassess the role of duties in modern practices and theories of citizenship. This results in a normative theoretical case for partially duty-based citizenship under contemporary sociopolitical conditions, which takes issue with influential philosophical and political currents, in particular libertarianism and exclusively rights-based liberalism.