My research is about the cultural and psychological foundations underlying the modern political order, including the most fundamental concepts and assumptions on which it rests and which are rarely ever questioned by mainstream theories.
In my Master's thesis I analysed how the model of the modern nation-state is projected into the developing world with the help of postmodern simulation technologies. I came to the conclusion that contemporary state-building and nation-building projects do not actually produce nations or states, but help spreading and naturalising the idea that there are «pre-modern» parts of the world that need to be «modernised». This latter narrative can be seen as an imperialist Western ethnocentric account, but it can also be understood as a (more or less) peaceful way to bridge the growing gap, at least conceptually, between the ever more diverging parts of our globalised world.
My Ph.D. project focusses on the naturalisation of the concept of the human individual, which is the necessary complement and mirror-image of the modern nation-state. I hypothesise that a number of linguistic devices especially in the grammar of the modern European languages since about 1400 (dates vary for different languages) correspond particularly well with the modern concept of the human individual's responsibility and accountability, hence with the modern economic and political order. One observable effect of this interrelationship between language and socio-economic development is that social capital endowments are systematically higher in countries where «modern» idioms are spoken.
Ph.D. project: Grammatik als Sozialkapital. Sprachliche Relativität in Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft (Grammar as Social Capital. Linguistic Relativity in Economy and Society)
Supervisor: Prof. Daniele Caramani, Ph.D.
Co-Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Iwar Werlen (Professor of Linguistics, University of Berne)
Publications:
Published Master's Thesis
Edited book
Book Chapters
Contributions to Conferences
- "Trust is Good, Self-control is Better: Towards a Psychologically Grounded Theory of Social Capital", paper presented at the AHF, IIPPE, FAPE joint conference on Political Economy and the Outlook of Capitalism. July 5–7, 2012, Paris (France).
- "Failed State-building and the Flawed State Concept: Re-animate the Body Politic", poster presented at the ESF conference Rethinking the Foundations of the State: Post-Conflict State Transformation. May, 2009, Linköpping (Sweden).
- "Sustainability as a Concept of Governance", input paper for the Symposium on International Law and Politics. November, 2005, University of St.Gallen.
Memberships:
Federal Association of Economists (bdvb e.V.), Vice President
Swiss Political Science Association
French Assiciation of Political Economy