Research
My research asks how European politics is governed, contested, and communicated, with a strong empirical focus on Central and Eastern Europe and recurring attention to domestic political competition.
European Integration and EU Governance
My research on European integration focuses on how the European Union is governed and how its institutional arrangements evolve. I am particularly interested in EU institutions and decision making, institutional reform, differentiated integration, and relations between the national and European levels of governance. My work has examined participation and representation in EU institutions, including ministerial involvement in the Council, as well as debates over differentiated integration, decision-making rules, and the future institutional development of the EU. A recurring concern in this research is how these processes are viewed from and affect smaller and Central and Eastern European member states, particularly Czechia.
Parties, Elections and Politicisation
My research in this area examines how European integration enters domestic political competition and how political actors contest and communicate European issues. My earlier work focused particularly on European Parliament elections, including electoral behaviour, candidate selection, campaign agendas, and the Europeanisation of party competition. More recent research examines the politicisation of European integration, asking which aspects of EU politics political actors choose to emphasise, how this varies across parties and political contexts, and how European issues are communicated in parliamentary and social-media discourse. A recurring focus of this research is the interaction between European integration and domestic political competition, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe.
Migration, Framing and Political Communication
My research in this area examines how migration and related political issues are framed, communicated, and politicised in political and media discourse. I am particularly interested in how migration itself, as well as migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees, are represented by political actors and the media, how these representations vary across groups and political contexts, and how periods of crisis reshape public and political debate. My work has drawn on news coverage, parliamentary debates, political discourse, and other forms of political communication to compare patterns of framing and politicisation across countries and over time. Much of this research focuses on Central and Eastern Europe, while also addressing broader questions about political communication, issue framing, and the construction of political problems.
Methodological approach
My research draws primarily on quantitative methods, complemented by qualitative approaches where these are better suited to the research question. I have worked with a wide range of political and media texts, including parliamentary speeches and debates, party manifestos, news coverage, and social-media communication. My research has combined statistical analysis and quantitative content analysis with qualitative approaches to political discourse and framing, including conceptual metaphor analysis. More recent work also explores computational and machine-learning approaches to the analysis of political text.