It’s Insurance After All: Private Insurance and the Politics of Risk Pooling in Continental Europe
This book project analyzes how the rise of private insurance has reshaped the welfare states of Continental Europe. Once rooted in solidarity and collective provision, the systems of Belgium, France, Germany, and the Netherlands have, over the past four decades, become increasingly reliant on private pensions, life insurance, and health insurance. Despite their common insurance-based legacies, these countries have followed distinct paths. Across them, however, the same political question returns: who remains in common pools, who gains private alternatives, and who bears the cost of protection?
Drawing on historical analysis, formal modeling, interviews, and statistical evidence, the project shows that private insurance does not simply replace social insurance. It reorganizes the boundaries of solidarity. By tracing how parties, insurers, and regulators construct private insurance markets, the book explains how financial-service providers have become central to European welfare capitalism, reshaping welfare coalitions, deepening labor-market inequalities, and transforming the politics of risk pooling.
Book project, prepared as my habilitation thesis under the supervision of Bruno Palier (CNRS, Sciences Po).
The Political Economy of Particularism
This project studies how legislative and regulatory processes channel resources to privileged actors and shape patterns of inequality and market power. Drawing on new large-scale, micro-level datasets on parliamentary activity and public procurement, it examines the institutional mechanisms through which rules are designed or adapted to benefit specific firms and sectors.
These mechanisms have tangible consequences: the project traces how these advantages translate into market performance and how they feed back into politics through campaign finance, lobbying, and media influence. In doing so, it highlights the redistributive implications of political favoritism and its broader consequences for the politics of policy.
Funded by the the European Union’s Horizon Europe Programme as part of the RESPOND project. In collaboration with Misi Fazekas (Central European University) and Sebastian Thieme (Sciences Po).
The Bill, Please!
This project investigates how the transparency of government websites shapes public trust in democracy. While governments increasingly publish legislative data online, gaps in accuracy and completeness remain, often undermining rather than strengthening confidence in institutions. Drawing on variation across ten democracies, the project experimentally examines how incomplete transparency affects different dimensions of political trust—competence, honesty, and conspiratorial thinking. Using cross-national survey experiments, it tests how citizens respond when official information is missing or inconsistent on government-sponsored websites—precisely where such information is expected to be publicly available. By linking digital transparency to democratic attitudes, the project advances research on political accountability while providing practical insights to enhance government digital communication.
Funded by a grant from Sciences Po’s Scientific Advisory Board. In collaboration with Sebastian Thieme (Sciences Po).