I am a postdoctoral researcher at the University St. Gallen specializing in the study of civic participation, political communication, and comparative politics. I completed my dissertation in June 2023 as part of the project “A non-populist theory of direct democracy”", funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation at the University of Geneva.
The project involved piloting a novel process of political participation in Switzerland called the Citizens’ Initiative Review, where a small panel of randomly selected citizens informs fellow voters about an upcoming popular vote with a summary statement.
The first iteration of "Demoscan" took place in the municipality of Sion in the south-west of Switzerland (Canton of Valais) in fall 2019. The next pilot took place over two weekends in September 2021 at the cantonal level in Geneva, followed by further runs in the canton of Aargau and the city of Bellinzona (2023).