Diploma in Political Science, Free University of Berlin, and German-French Diploma in the Political and Social Sciences (Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris and Free University Berlin). 2002-2011 Researcher (assistant and then postdoc) and lecturer  at the Institute for Political Science at the University of Zurich. 2008-09 Max Weber Visiting Fellow at the European University Institute, Florence. Various projects on democratization and party system development in Latin America since 2009 as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of St. Gallen. Since 2012 Director of the Research Area Political Sociology at the Institute for Political Science at the University of Zurich. 2018/19 Alexander von Humboldt WZB Alumni Fellow, Berlin Social Science Center /Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB).