I specialise in early modern comparative European history - from France, Britain and Germany all the way to Russia. My interests focus on early modern politics and political culture but include the history of religion, urban history, the history of crime and the history of identities. My current research is geared towards a long-term comparative study of the genesis of democracy in Europe and America from the Middle Ages through the early modern period and the late-18th century ‘Age of Revolutions’. The results will soon appear in a book titled ‘Democracy’s Double Helix' (Cambridge University Press, academic impact monograph, 2025).

 

I started working as Universitair Docent for Political History at Utrecht University in 2009, after writing my PhD on crime and social control in a late medieval/early modern urban context at the Humboldt University, Berlin, and researching and teaching at the university of Bielefeld. In 2016, I published a second book on the political and cultural implications of the use of statistics in the 18th century, particularly in France and Germany (awarded the two-yearly 'Carl Erdmann Preis' by the German Historians' Association).

 

Over the past years, together with colleagues from different disciplines, I have also been engaged in running a research and discussion platform on the ‘Futures of Democracy’ within the UU-wide strategic theme Institutions for Open Societies (IOS). I also coordinate an initiative to enhance the role of the topic ‘Global Futures of Democracy’ within IOS and within UU and to set up a global network of researchers, educators and activists, engaged in protecting democracy as well as in finding ways to develop it further.