Publications:

Books:

The Grammar of Time: A Toolbox for Comparative Historical Analysis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023)

Offers the first systematic synthesis of the tools used by social science research traditions emphasizing the importance of time. It tries to turn comparative historical analysis from being craft learned from skilled practitioner into a more standardized, and thus more readily learnable methodology. It explicates the different conceptualizations of history, temporal dynamics (i.e. sequencing, timing, tempo, duration), and discuss their methodological implications. I prepared short lecture highlighting the book's key points. Publisher link.

Institutions and Innovation: Voters, Interest Groups and Parties in the Consolidation of Democracy. France and Germany, 1870-1939 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001)

Explains the divergence in the programmatic and electioneering innovativeness of French and German parties after 1918. It focuses on the adoption of Germany’s system of proportional representation in 1918 to explain why Germany parties became more centralized, hierarchical, ossified, and hence less capable to adapt to the rapidly changing interwar political environment. France’s double ballot electoral system did not have the same ossifying effects. Publisher link.

Works in Progress:

The Architecture of Theory: How to Construct and Visualize Causal Arguments (Draft Manuscript, September 2024)
"Time as Age. Capturing an Overlooked Dimension of Party System Change." (Under review; with Vello Pettai)
"Unwitting Bayesians. The Bayesian Foundations of Historical Analysis." (Revising for re-submission)

Articles:

"Sweden’s Peculiar Adoption of Proportional Representation. The Overlooked Effects of Time and History." Perspectives on Politics: 1-20. (FirstView)
"The Methodological Legacies of Theda Skocpol's State and Social Revolutions," Politics (2024) vol. 44/4: 530-42.
- Is part of special issues devoted to the 40th anniversary of State and Social Revolutions. See other contributions and Skocpol's reply in the same issue.
"Epistemological and Ontological Priors: Knowledge Production and Research Integrity," Perspectives in Politics, 19(1), 2020: 1–17. [with Craig Parson]
"Structure of Description: Evaluating Descriptive Inferences and Conceptualizations," Perspectives in Politics, 17(1), 2019: 122–139.
"Assessing Causal Inference Problems with Bayesian Process Tracing: The Economic Effects of Proportional Representation and the Problem of Endogeneity," New Political Economy vol. 22/5, 2016: 473-83.
- Was part of a special issues on process tracing. See responses by Renate Mayntz, Kimberly Morgan, James Mahoney in the same issue.
"Historical Knowledge and Quantitative Analysis: The Case of the Origins of Proportional Representation,” American Political Science Review vol. 104/2, May 2010: 369-92.
- See replies by Charles Boix, Thomas Cussack, Torben Iverson, and David Soskice in the same issue of the APSR.
"How Party Systems Form: Path Dependency, Coordination Strategies and the Institutionalization of the Postwar German Party System,” British Journal of Political Science vol. 39/4, 2009 (October): 669-97.
"Political Parties and the Study of Political Development: New Insights from the Postcommunist Democracies,” World Politics vol. 56/4, 2005 (July): 608-33.
"Patterns of Political Instability. Party System Institutionalization in Postcommunist Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania," Studies in Comparative International Development. 2003, 38/2 (Summer): 73-95 (with Vello Pettai)
"Parliamentarization and the Question of German Exceptionalism: 1867-1918,” Central European History vol. 36/3 (2003): 327-359.
- See between by Jonathan Sperber, Kenneth Ledford, and myself.
"Personal Vote, Party Vote and Electoral Institutions: Explaining Differences of Conservative Parties in Japan, France, Britain, Austria and Germany., Party Politics 2000 6/4 (October): 487-504.
"Party Politics in the Baltic States: Social Base and Institutional Context," East European Politics and Societies 1999, 13/1 (Winter) 148-89 [with Vello Pettai]
"Coping with Mass Politics: Electoral Institutions, Party Innovation and Liberals in France and Germany," Social Science History 1999 23/2 (Summer): 211-40.
"Political Organization, Electoral Institutions and Party Development: French and German Socialists and Mass Politics, 1870s-1930s,” Comparative Politics 1998 30/3 (April): 273-92
"New Politics: Just Postmaterial? The Case of the Austrian and Swiss Greens," West European Politics, 1990, 13/1 (January): 12-30.

Book Chapters:

"Varieties of Time in Comparative Historical Analysis," Oxford Handbook on Politics in Time, 2020 Klaus Goetz, editor, (Oxford: Oxford University Press): 1-28.
"Channels of Representation in Advanced Industrialized Democracies," in Rick Valelly (Ed.), Oxford Online Bibliographies in Political Science, Rick Valelly Ed.). 2013. New York: Oxford University Press.
"Party Switching: How Disloyal Politicians Structure Party Organization, Popular Representation and Political Change," in Legislative Party Switching and the Foundations of Political Parties Carol Mershon and William Heller eds. (London: Palgrave, 2009): 265-85. [co-authored with Vello Pettai]
"Post-war Germany’s Personalized Proportional Representation: Institutional Engineering in the Shadow of Weimar," in Electoral Systems and Choice Josep Colomer ed. (New York: Palgrave, 2005)
"Und Sie Parliamentarisiert Sich! Die Entwicklung der kaiserlichen Verfassungsordnung in vergleichender Perspektive," in Parliamentarismus in Europe im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert Marie-Luise Recker, Hrsg. (Munich: Oldenbourg Verlag, 2004)
"Political Professionalization in France: 1870-1997," in Politics as Vocation Jens Borchert and Jürgen Zeiss eds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) [with Ina Stephan]
"Institutions and Party Development in the Baltic States," Party Development and Democratization Paul Lewis, ed. (London: Frank Cass, 2001): 107-26. [with Vello Pettai]
"Frankreich: Zwischen Wahlkreishonoratioren und nationalen Technokraten," in Politik als Beruf Jens Borchert, ed. Opladen: Leske + Budrich, 1999): 161-85.
"From Co-Optation to Competition: Changing Forms of Electoral Corruption in Nineteenth Century France," in Political Corruption in Latin American and European Perspective Walter Little and Eduardo Posada-Carbo, ed. (London: McMillan, 1996), pp. 97-114.

Other:

The Complexities of Historical Time,” Qualitative & Multi-Method Research Newsletter, (Fall 2013): 1-3
Conceptions of Time“ Guest editor of special issue for Qualitative & Multi-Method Research Newsletter (Fall 2013)
Time as Age, in Qualitative & Multi-Method Research Newsletter (Fall 2013): 14-17.
Effective Number of Parties, in “Getting Concepts Right” Special issue for the Comparative Politics Section Newsletter. 2007

Foreign Languages:

"Effeitos Institucionais No Desenvolvimento Dos Partidos. O Desempenho Eleitoral Dos Liberais Na França E Na Alemanha de Entre Guerras," Penélope 1998 19: 71-98. [Portugese]
"Frankreich: Zwischen Wahlkreishonoratioren und nationalen Technokraten," Politik als Beruf Jens Borchert, Hrsg. (Opladen: Westverlag, 1998): 161-86. [with Ina Stephan]

Book Reviews:

Ronald Inglehart's "Culture Shift," Political Science Quarterly, vol. 106/1, Spring 1991,
pp. 190-91.
Andres Kasekamp. 2000. The Radical Right in Interwar Estonia (London: McMillan) European Consortium for Political Research Fall 2001.
Herman Butzer's "Diäten und Freifahrt im Deutschen Reichstag, Journal of Modern History vol. 73/1; March 2001: 200-204