Academic Credentials

I am a trained political scientist (comparative perspective) and received my PhD in political science from Goethe-Universität (Frankfurt am Main) in 2002.  In 2010 I started teaching as a Guestprofessor at the John-F.-Kennedy-Institute for North-American Studies  (JFKI) at the Freie Universität Berlin and since 2012 as Professor of Political Science with a focus on Political Systems in North America in the Department of Political Science at the JFKI. I published widely on the topics of inequality,  state-market relations, social and health policy, democracy in a transatlantic perspective.

© Georg Lopata/BKK

Areas of Research

I am primarily interested in the topic of income and wealth inequality and how advanced welfare regimes in the transatlantic region try to redistribute economic resources via the tax and transfer system. Right now I am working on a book manuscript titled "The Promise of Equality: Legitimacy and the Boundaries of Democracy"