Teaching

Methods I: Research Design, Qualitative Methods, and Data Collection

ETH Zurich · Graduate · Fall 2025, Fall 2026 · Co-taught

This MACIS core course covers basic issues of research design, small-n research, and data collection. It familiarizes students with general research design problems such as defining research questions, analyzing causality, and designing single and comparative case studies. It then introduces them to basic issues in small-n research. Students acquire an understanding of the specific challenges and design problems in qualitative analysis. Finally, students are introduced to exemplary methods of data collection. By the end of the course, students should be able to use the principal methods of data collection used by political scientists, have a critical understanding of the advantages and disadvantages of the methods, and be able to reflect on and discuss the methods in light of research questions of their interest.

European Security and Great Power Competition

University of Lucerne · Graduate · Spring 2026

This course examines the evolution and current state of Europe’s security architecture in an era of renewed great power rivalry. We explore how institutions like NATO, the European Union (EU), and the OSCE have shaped European security from the Cold War to the present, and how great power competition, involving the United States, Russia, and China, is redefining that architecture today. The course goes beyond security institutions to address non-traditional security challenges such as energy security, climate change, migration, and the rise of nationalism within Europe. We pay special attention to Switzerland’s unique role as a neutral country within Europe’s security framework. Through a mix of classic foundational readings and up-to-date analyses, students engage with both historical context and contemporary debates, including NATO’s post-Cold War evolution, the impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine, and Europe’s pursuit of “strategic autonomy” amid shifting U.S. engagement.

Contemporary European Politics

ETH Zurich · Undergraduate · Spring 2025, Spring 2026 · Co-taught

This seminar introduces students to the European Union as a multilevel political system. It starts from theories of European integration, traces how the Union’s institutions developed and how their competences expanded, and then turns to supranational decision-making in times of crisis. Sessions cover the EU institutions and decision-making, parliamentary democracy and judicial politics, European identity and public spheres, enlargement and neighbourhood policy, democratic backsliding, political conflict, the implementation of EU law, the Eurozone, inequality, Euroscepticism and Brexit, and the future of integration. By the end of the course, students understand how EU legislation shapes fields as diverse as financial markets, climate policy and data privacy, and can assess the opportunities and limits of regulation beyond the nation state.

NATO in Crisis: The Ukraine War

Syracuse University (Florence) · Undergraduate · Spring and Fall 2023, Spring 2024

The course equips students with an understanding of the Ukrainian conflict by placing this historic and unfortunate event in historical, geopolitical, and cultural contexts. A recurrent theme throughout the course is that we can understand the Russo-Ukrainian war through various epistemic and theoretical lenses. History, politics, culture, and geography can contribute to better grasping why, how, and what is happening to Ukraine and with what potential implications for the world.

Causal Inference for Foreign Policy Analysis

Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs · September 2023 · Professional workshop

This workshop provides an advanced introduction to the study of causality (Neyman–Rubin, mechanistic, comparative) for foreign policy analysis for practitioners. Through a three-day session, participants are exposed to different ways of reaching causal inferences relying on different research designs and methods. Considering the small-n focus of foreign policy analysis, an emphasis is put on qualitative approaches to causal inference, particularly process tracing and case comparisons.

Introduction to Theories of International Relations

Johns Hopkins SAIS (Bologna) · Graduate · TA for Prof. Nina Hall · Winter 2020, Winter 2021, Fall 2022

This course provides graduate students with an introduction to the basics of International Relations theory. Over the course of 12 weeks, it reviews the major theories defining contemporary IR scholarship, as well as substantive topics such as green theory, migration, and feminist IR.

Policies and Processes of Transnational Governance

European University Institute, School of Transnational Governance (Florence) · Graduate · TA for Prof. Diane Stone · Fall 2022

Markets and Politics

George Washington University, School of Business · Undergraduate · TA for Prof. Ernie Englander · Winter 2019

This course introduced students to the basics of political economy from an American perspective. During the class, students were exposed to different theories and scholarship on the relations between public institutions and businesses, how markets and politics are interconnected, and how institutional design defines how these interactions take place.