About me

I am a Postdoc at the Institute of Political Science at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg. My research (also published as Lars Pelke) has been published or is forthcoming in over 15 journals or volumes, including Perspectives on Politics, Democratization, Political Studies, European Policy Review, Swiss Politial Science Review, Higher Education, Contemporary Politics, International Area Studies Review. My work on the Academic Freedom Index has received coverage by media such as Forbes, Spiegel Online, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, die ZEIT, Times Higher Education, among others. I have given keynote speeches at events related to academic freedom and participated in several panel discussions on the topic.

My research focuses on different areas in comparative politics, namely conceptualization and measurement of regime transformations, and political economy of inequalities, academic freedom, and democratic resilience. I studied Political Science and Public Law in Heidelberg and received a B.A. in Political Science and Public Law, and a M.A. in Political Science from Heidelberg University. In 2021, I received a PhD from Heidelberg University (summa cum laude). My paper-based PhD project, “Rethinking Inequality under Autocracy. Parties, Citizens and Preferences” investigated whether and how the institutional foundations of autocracies determine economic and political inequalities, and whether and how these inequalities affect ordinary citizens in the short and long-term. Three papers from my PhD project were published in Democratization, Contemporary Politics, and Comparative Governance and Politics.

Between February 2022 and September 2024, I was a postdoctoral researcher in a project on the Academic Freedom Index. Between April 2019 and January 2022, I was a research associate at the Institute of Political Science at Heidelberg University. During my studies, I was involved in research projects as a student assistant and did an internship at the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB). Between October 2018 and September 2019, I was a research fellow at GIGA Hamburg in the Dictator’s Endgames project, funded by the DFG. For additional information, please refer to my curriculum vitae.

On this website, you will find further information on my research and teaching. Thank you for your interest and please feel free to contact me.