Biography

Christoph Niessen holds a PhD in Political and Social Sciences from the Universities of Louvain and Namur in Belgium, and an M.A. in Political Science from Central European University Budapest. He has previously been visiting researcher at the University of Edinburgh and Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona.

His research deals with multi-level governance and deliberative citizen participation. More specifically, he has studied the determinants of evolving sub-state autonomy demands and statutes in Western Europe, and researched how deliberative democratic innovations are received by traditional decision-making actors.

His work has appeared in the International Political Science Review, Parliamentary Affairs, Politics & Society, Policy Sciences, Publius: the Journal of Federalism and Comparative European Politics.

During his Max Weber Fellowship, Christoph will examine the motives of decision makers around the world that institutionalize deliberative citizen participation; and pursue his investigation of the evolution of sub-state autonomy demands and statutes in countries undergoing centrifugal sociological decentralization.

Expertise for Teaching and Mentoring of Ph.D. Researchers
He has taught research methodology and multi-level governance on undergraduate level and supervised graduate research.