Team
Here you will find our staff members in alphabetical order with brief personal descriptions and contact information.
Click here for our emeriti and retired colleagues
Sarah Berens is Assistant Professor (tenure-track) for Political Economy. Previously, she was a post-doctoral fellow at the Cologne Center for Comparative Politics at the University of Cologne. Together with Prof. Dr. Manow, she is principal investigator of the project B03 "International Complementarities in the Development of National Welfare States: The Transatlantic Sphere (1870-2020)" of the Collaborative Research Center 1342 Global Dynamics of Social Policy at the University of Bremen and Associate Researcher at the University of Cologne. She was a PhD student within the Graduate Program of the International Max Planck Research School on the Social and Political Constitution of the Economy (IMPRS-SPCE) of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies and the University of Cologne and received her PhD from the University of Cologne in 2013. She holds an M.A. from Humboldt University of Berlin and a B.A. form the University of Konstanz. She has been a visiting researcher at Duke University, Columbia University, the Inter-American Development Bank, Cornell University and Vanderbilt University. Her work has appeared in: Political Behavior, Socio-Economic Review, Political Studies, Latin American Politics & Society, Social Policy & Administration, and Journal of Politics in Latin America.
In her research, Sarah Berens examines the micro-foundation of national welfare states and taxation systems in developing democracies. Her regional focus is on the Latin American context. Her methodological approach is empirical-analytical with particular expertise in standardized survey research and survey experiments.
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Sarah C. Dingler is Assistant Professor (tenure track) for empirical gender research at the University of Innsbruck. Previously, she was a post-doctoral researcher at the Geschwister-Scholl-Institut at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich. She received her Ph.D from the University of Salzburg. Her main areas of research include the analysis of political institutions on women's representation and the role of women as political actors in legislatures and the executive. Her work has appeared e.g. in Journal of European Public Policy, Electoral Studies and Journal of Elections, Public Opinions and Parties.
Together with Corinna Kroeber she is editor of the blog Counting Counts. It aims to offer accessible academic commentary and research on various topics related electoral systems and representation of women.
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Dominik Duell studies political and economic behavior in representative democracies with a special focus on how social identity relationships influence citizens' choices. He analyzes how individuals evaluate their politicians' performance, when they discriminate in favor of their social group, how they make redistributive allocation decisions, how they coordinate their choices with their peers when forming electoral coalitions, why structural discrimination arises and how to govern diverse societies.
Dominik's research lies at the intersection of Political Economy, Political Behavior, and Political Psychology. He builds on strategic and behavioral theories of voting, representation, and electoral accountability and implements experiments, surveys, and large-scale online data collection. Before coming to Innsbruck, he received his PhD from New York University, worked as post-doctoral researcher at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Toulouse and was faculty member in the Government Department at the University of Essex. His work has been published in leading journals in Political Science such as the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, or Political Science Research and Methods.
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Dean of the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences
Franz Eder is associate professor of international relations at the University of Innsbruck and a lecturer at the University of Applied Science BFI Vienna. He is currently the Dean of the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Innsbruck.
In his research, he focuses on foreign policy analysis, US foreign and security policy, (counter)terrorism and methodological questions of the study of international relations. His recent publications include ‘Making Concurrence-Seeking Visible: Groupthink, Discourse Networks, and the 2003 Iraq War’ in Foreign Policy Analysis, ‘Cui Bono Scientia Politica? A Multi-Dimensional Concept of Relevance and the Case of Political Science in Austria’ in the Austrian Journal of Political Science, and Der Irakkrieg 2003 at Innsbruck University Press.
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Department Officer & Apprentice Trainer
Office hours
Mon,Tue and Fri 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Tue 1:30 - 3:00 pm
Fabian Habersack is Post-Doctoral Researcher at the University of Innsbruck since May 2021. He received his PhD from the University of Salzburg for his dissertation entitled A Nativist Zeitgeist? Explaining Party Adaptation to the Success of the Populist Radical Right. Previously, Fabian Habersack studied at the University of Salzburg and Sciences Po, Paris. For his Master's thesis, he awarded the Austrian Young Investigators Award (ÖGPW). His research, which has been published in Environmental Politics, European Politicsand Society, and Party Politics among others, focuses primarily on the influence of right-wing populist parties on spatial party competition as well as democracy and representation, with a special research interest in quantitative methods as well as in the Austrian political system.
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Lore Hayek is an Assistant Professor of Austrian Politics and Civic Education.
She holds a degree in Political Science from the University of Innsbruck and an MSc in Social Research Methods from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She completed her dissertation as a part of AUTNES – Austrian National Election Study, on election posters as a campaign medium in Austrian election campaigns.
Lore’s research focuses on electoral campaigning and political advertising as well as political media coverage, applying quantitative methods such as content analyses.
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Ludger Helms, M.A. (Freiburg, 1993), Dr. phil. (Heidelberg, 1997), Habilitation (Humboldt, Berlin, 2001), has been Professor of Political Science (Chair of Comparative Politics) at the University of Innsbruck since 2008.
Before joining the University of Innsbruck, he has been a Senior Research Professor in the Department of International Relations at Webster University and a Heisenberg Fellow of the German Research Council. He has formerly held positions or visiting affiliations at the University of Heidelberg, the University of Göttingen, Humboldt University, Harvard University, UC Berkeley, Barnard College/Columbia University, the London School of Economics, the University of Tokyo, LUISS, Central European University, and Gadjah Mada University, Yogyakarta. 2022/23 invited Visiting Fellow at the School of Advanced Study, University of London.
His research focuses on comparative political institutions and elites, democratic and authoritarian regimes, political oppositions and executive leadership. He is the author of five books, the editor or co-editor of 15 volumes or special issues, as well as the author of about 100 journal articles and some 50 chapters. He has been a recurrent reviewer for more than 40 international journals. He also serves on the editorial board of several major journals, such as the Asian Journal of Comparative Politics, Politics & Governance, and Social Sciences, and is the founding and lead editor of the Palgrave Studies in Political Leadership book series.
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From 2009 to 2016, he was a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Political Science at the University of Vienna and a collaborator on the National Election Study (AUTNES) on the 2013 National Council election. He is currently a member of the ACIER research consortium of the Universities of Vienna, Innsbruck and Salzburg on the 2017 National Council election.
Research interests include electoral behaviour, campaign and party competition, parliamentarism, content and sentiment analysis of political communication.
More information about Marcelo JENNY:
Lisa Lechner is Assistant professor for methods and methodology in political science at the University of Innsbruck. Before, she worked as postdoctoral researcher in the TRADEPOWER (ERC grant) project at the University of Salzburg. Lisa Lechner wrote her dissertation entitled “the political, social, and ecological weight of preferential trade agreements” at the University of Salzburg and McGill University.
In her research, Lisa studies international treaties, such as trade agreements, bilateral tax treaties, and environmental agreements, as well as national and international jurisdictions by dint of network- and text-analysis. Her research appeared in a number of peer-reviewed outlets, such as Review of International Political Economy, Review of International Organizations, International Interactions, and Global Environmental Policy. Beyond academic talks, Lisa Lechner held public speeches on trade. Among others she spoke at the OECD in Paris, the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung in Berlin, and the Austrian Parliament.
More information about Lisa LECHNER:
University Professor of Political Science at the Department of Political Science at the University of Innsbruck since October 2015. Specialization on International Relations and Security in the Post-Soviet region.
Associate Professor of Political Science at the Department of Political Science at the University of Innsbruck March 2003-September 2015.
July 2000-February 2003 Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science at the University of Innsbruck.
Scientific Adviser on Post-Soviet Affairs at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs (oiip) in Vienna February 2009-2015
October 1991–June 2008 Permanent and Senior Research Fellow on Eastern Europe and the former USSR at the Austrian Institute for International Affairs (OIIP) in Vienna.
Lecturer at the Diplomatic Academy in Vienna since 1995.
Lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences in Vienna since 2004
Studies in Political Science, History and Slavonics at the Universities of Innsbruck and Salzburg with a special focus on Comparative Political Science (political systems of Eastern Europe and the USSR) and International Relations.
Main Research Areas: Russian Domestic and Foreign Policy; Strategic Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, Nuclear (weapons) programmes in North Korea (DPRK), Iran and Libya; US Foreign Policy; EU Energy Security in the gas sector.
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Camilla Mariotto is PostDoctoral researcher at the Institute for Political Science in Innsbruck since December 2017.
She studied International and European Politics at the Università degli Studi di Trento (School of International Studies). She got her PhD at the Università degli Studi di Milano on a thesis entitled "Bicameralism of the European Union: Decision-making in the Conciliation Committee". In 2011 she was visiting scholar at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor, USA).
In 2014 she worked as policy analyst at the start-up “Voices from the Blogs”, based in Milan. Since March 2015 she has been PostDoctoral Research Fellow at the Hertie School of Governance (Berlin) and then at the Università degli Studi di Milano, where she was involved in a research on "Fiscal Policy in the multilevel governance of the European Union: ideas, negotiations and implementation". From 2016 to 2018 she was managing editor of the Italian Political Science Review.
Her primary research interests concern the politics and policy of the European Union, in particular legislative politics (the inter- and intra-institutional relations between the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union) and executive politics (implementation of the EU legislation and member states’ compliance), quantitative methods and formal models. Recently she has got interests in EU fiscal policies.
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Andreas Maurer, Dipl.Pol. (Frankfurt/Main), MA / D.E.E.A. (College of Europe, Bruges), Dr.rer.soc. (Giessen) is a Professor and Jean Monnet Chair for Political Science and European Integration at the University of Innsbruck. He also acts as Senior Fellow of the German Institute for International and Security affairs (SWP), and as guest professor for EUIs School of Transnational Governance. Previous engagements at the Institute for European Politics, Bonn (1994-1997), the Jean Monnet Chair for Political Science at the University of Cologne (1997-2001), the Trans European Policy Studies Association - TEPSA, Brussels (1999-2001), and the German Institute for International Politics and Security (2001-2013). Within the European Parliament, Andreas worked as a detached national expert (2007-2008) and as a contractual administrator (2009-2011) for the Secretariat of its Committee on International Trade. Further engagements and fellowships at the IEP Paris, the Forward Studies Unit of the European Commission’s President, the European Parliament, the Fondation Guy Mollet, and the Foyer International d’Études Francaises. Andreas received the Science Award of the German Bundestag (2003) and the Media Prize of the Foreign Press Association, Berlin (2007). His research focuses on the European Parliament and interparliamentary cooperation in EU affairs, the theory and practice of multi-level parliamentarism, the EU’s and EFTA trade policies and the frameworks for European Soft law and interinstitutional agreements.
Recent publications:
- The Multilevel Rule of Law System of the European Union: Eked Out, Contested, Still Unassured (with Annegret Eppler and Andreas Hackhofer), in Antoniolli L., Bonatti L., Ruzza C. (eds), Highs and Lows of European Integration. Springer 2018 pp 65-82.
- Parliamentary scrutiny as a function of interparliamentary cooperation among subnational parliaments (with Annegret Eppler), in The Journal of Legislative Studies, Volume 23, 2017 - Issue 2, pp. 238-259.
- Comparing EU and EFTA trade agreements: drivers, actors, benefits, and costs, European Parliament, Policy Department 2016, Study for the European Parliament (doi:10.2861/67855).
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Camila Montero Trujillo is a pre-doc researcher at the Department of Political Science. She studied International Relations at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito (Ecuador) and two sub-specializations in Political Science and Philosophy. She did her undergraduate studies for a year at Beloit College (United States) being critical studies of identity, gender, and philosophy her main focus. She started the double degree master's program at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona (Spain) and focused on the study of Research Methods in Political Science with special emphasis on quantitative methods. Later, she continued her master's studies at the University of Konstanz focusing on International Administration and Conflict Management.
During her years of study, she has collaborated as a research assistant in projects related to electoral behavior, conflict in Latin America, and gender mainstreaming.
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Andreas Pehr is a university assistant (PhD) at the Department of Political Science. He studied political science, history and social sciences at the Universities of Basel, Freiburg i. Br., Los Angeles (Long Beach) and Salzburg.
His research interests lie in comparative politics/comparative federalism. These are set in particular in relation to state performance and policy outcomes.
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Susanne Reitmair-Juárez is a PhD student at the University of Innsbruck since June 2021. She studied political science at the University of Salzburg, and conducted field research in Guatemala. She was member of the scientific staff at the Democracy Centre Vienna (2013-2021) and member of the board of the Austrian interest group for citizenship education (IGPB; 2015-2018).
Her work focuses on Citizenship Education, concepts of citizenship and participation (on- and offline) as well as conspiracy theories and disinformation on social media. In her PhD project she explores individualized news consumption of adolescents and young adults online.
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Christian Schwaderer is a PhD student in Political Communication and Media at the University of Innsbruck.
He completed the Bachelor's programme in Political Science and the Master's programme in Political Science: European and International Politics at the University of Innsbruck, graduating in July 2021. During his studies, he was involved in various projects as a student assistant.
In his dissertation, he is researching state communication behaviour during the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Dr. Martin Senn is Professor of Political Science (The Politics of International Order) at the University of Innsbruck and guest lecturer at the Diplomatic Academcy of Vienna. In his research and teaching he focuses on the emergence and change of order(s) in world politics, (international) political communication as well as on nuclear (non)proliferation and disarmament. His recent publications include a special issue the societal relevance of political science in the Austrian Journal of Political Science, a special issue on ‘The Transformation of Targeted Killing and International Order’ (together with Jodok Troy) in Contemporary Security Policy and a special section on ‘Background Ideas in International Relations’ (together with Markus Kornprobst) in the British Journal of Politics and International Relations.
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Oleksandra Terentyeva is a PhD student at the University of Innsbruck since July 2022. She has a Bachelor's Degree in Country Studies (2018) and a Master's Degree in Regional Studies (2020) from the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv (Ukraine). She focused on foreign policy issues within the Benelux region, including Belgian post-colonial foreign affairs and Belgian politics of memory.
As a Ukrainian scholar, in 2022 she was supported by the FWF (Austrian Science Fund) to continue her research abroad. Her current doctoral project is dedicated to the war-affected politics of memory and the post-revolutionary state identity of Ukraine. She is also a junior investigator in the Elise-Richter "Migration as Morality Politics" project, led by Dr Julia Mourão Permoser (2022-2023). Within the project, she works on sanctuary networks in Belgium and the Netherlands.
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Jodok Troy is Assistant Professor at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. After studies of History, Theology, and Political Science he earned his PhD from the University of Innsbruck in 2008. He was a visiting scholar at The Europe Center at Stanford University (2016-2018), a research fellow at the Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University (2007), an affiliate scholar of the Swedish National Defense College in Stockholm, and a lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences Bfi in Vienna.
His research focuses on international political theory, in particular on religion, ethics, the English School, and classical Realism.
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Maren Vieluf is a pre-doc researcher at the Foreign Policy Lab of the University of Innsbruck since July 2023 focusing on nuclear disarmament, non-proliferation, and arms control.
She studied Political Science at the University of Bremen (B.A. and M.A.) and graduated from the IFSH postgraduate master’s program “Peace and Security Studies”. After her studies she was an intern at the Bertelsmann Transformation Index of the Bertelsmann Stiftung and at the Competence Center for Peace and Emergency Aid in the Governance and Conflict Division of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). Subsequently, she worked as a research assistant in the International Security Research Division of the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP). Most recently, she was a researcher in the "Challenges to Deep Cuts" project at the IFSH and an policy consultant to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
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Thomas Walli, BA BA MA, is Senior Scientist at the Department of Political Science. Among other things, he is responsible for science communication and the administration of research projects. He studied Political Science, History and Philosophy at the University of Innsbruck and the Università degli studi di Pavia. Since 2019 he has been Editor of the Austrian Journal of Political Science (www.oezp.at).
His main areas of interest are: science and technology studies and science communication; European Economic and Social Committee and European Parliament; Italian politics and Italian contemporary history; political philosophy.
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David Willumsen is Assistant Professor (tenure-track) of Parliamentarism and Political Parties in a Comparative Perspective. Previously, he was Interim Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Konstanz, and a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the University of Innsbruck and at LMU Munich. He holds a PhD from the European University Institute, Florence, an M.Sc. and a B.Sc. from the London School of Economics, and has been a visiting PhD researcher at ETH Zurich.
His thesis has been published under the title The Acceptance of Party Unity in Parliamentary Democracies (Oxford University Press), and he has published research articles in journals such as Electoral Studies, European Journal of Political Research, European Union Politics, Journal of European Public Policy, Parliamentary Affairs, Party Politics, and West European Politics.
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