Research

Under Review and Working Papers

  • Marching Together? Military Conscription and Immigration Attitudes in Europe
    Working paper. 2026.

    Abstract

    Amid renewed debates about national service in Europe, military conscription is increasingly seen not just as a tool for defense, but as a way to foster social cohesion and national identity. This paper asks whether exposure to conscription shapes how people think about immigration. Using data from the European Social Survey and a regression discontinuity design, I examine the long-term effects of conscription on attitudes toward immigration in eleven European countries that abolished mandatory conscription between 1961 and 2006. Individuals who narrowly missed conscription due to abolition express less negative views about immigration’s impact on the economy, culture, and quality of life, consistent with conscription reinforcing exclusionary perceptions. However, these changes in perception do not consistently lead to lower support for far-right political parties or to more liberal policy preferences, suggesting a gap between personal beliefs and political behavior. These findings contribute to debates on nationalism, civic institutions, and the political consequences of military service, and carry implications for countries currently reconsidering conscription.

  • Cycling through Elections: The Political Consequences of the Tour de France
    Revise and Resubmit at American Political Science Review. 2025.
    With Ala Alrababah, Germain Gauthier, and Adam Polak.

    Abstract

    Support for far-right parties has grown in recent years, fueled in part by economic decline and neglect in left-behind places. Can a brief but highly salient event reverse these trends? We study the Tour de France, which provides a positive and salient boost combining economic activity with non-material benefits such as national visibility and collective experience. Using variation in the route between 2002 and 2022, we show that exposed communes experience declines in far-right support and increases in mainstream support of 0.03–0.05 standard deviations (SD). The estimates exceed 0.15 SD in recent elections and are largest in communes associated with left-behind places. While we cannot cleanly isolate the mechanism, we provide suggestive evidence consistent with a non-material channel. Local economic effects are small, electoral responses are larger when French riders win stages, and survey evidence collected around the 2025 Tour points to changes in how residents perceive their local communities.

  • The Supply Side of Take-Up: Administrative Capacity and the Production of Citizenship in Germany
    Under review at American Journal of Political Science.
    With Jorah Diethold, Niklas Harder, and Giuseppe Pietrantuono.

    Abstract

    Naturalization determines which long-term residents gain secure status, equal rights, and a political voice in the societies where they have settled. Across Europe, far fewer eligible immigrants naturalize than the law allows, and governments try to close this gap by informing, simplifying, and nudging. This demand-side approach assumes elastic administrative supply: that offices can absorb the claims outreach generates. We argue that where bureaucratic throughput binds, outreach may be ineffective or even counterproductive. Drawing on a district-year panel of all 401 German districts (2000–2020) and original coding of local naturalization campaigns, we estimate campaign effects using an interactive fixed-effects counterfactual estimator. Campaigns centered on publicity, targeted letters, or civil-society partnerships produced no gains and, on average, modestly reduced completed naturalizations. Only campaigns that expanded administrative capacity increased them, by about one third relative to the pre-campaign baseline. Citizenship is co-produced: delivered through administrative capacity, not merely granted by statute.

Work in Progress

  • The Army of Unity? Conscription and the Making of Belonging in Reunified Germany
    Winner, Visions in Methodology (VIM) Poster Prize 2026, Berlin.

    Abstract

    How did military service contribute to forging a shared sense of belonging in post-reunification Germany? This project examines the integrative legacies of conscription across the institutional rupture of 1990, when the Bundeswehr’s democratic conscription system replaced the socialist National People’s Army of the German Democratic Republic. Building on theories of social identity and intergroup contact, the study conceptualizes conscription as an institution of belonging that embeds individuals within the symbolic and civic order of the newly unified state. Using the German General Social Survey (ALLBUS) and a regression discontinuity design, it compares East German men whose eighteenth birthday fell just before the rupture (and who were therefore liable for service in the National People’s Army) with those who came of age just after it, eligible only under the unified Bundeswehr. West German men and East German women, neither subject to this change in conscription regime, serve as placebo comparisons that sharpen the design. The study tests whether eligibility under the democratic Bundeswehr fostered stronger attachment to the German nation. By tracing how these formative experiences shaped national identification, the project contributes to broader and timely debates on nation-building after regime change and on the enduring identity effects of state institutions.

  • The Costs of Belonging: Military Service and Citizenship Uptake in Sweden and the Netherlands
    With Giuseppe Pietrantuono.

    Abstract

    Did ending conscription change who sought citizenship? We test whether such a reform—the abolition of conscription in Sweden in 2010—shifted second-generation immigrants’ naturalization decisions. Classic accounts treat naturalization as a cost–benefit choice that balances rights against obligations. While prior work emphasizes fees and paperwork, we center conscription as a distinct obligation with material and symbolic weight: before the reform, naturalized men, like native-born citizens, were liable for conscription; after the reform, citizenship retained its rights without that duty. Using linked population registers, we implement a difference-in-differences design that compares male (exposed) and female (unexposed) cohorts reaching adulthood just before and just after the reform, with event-study checks to probe pre-trends. We then examine heterogeneity by origin, socioeconomic status, and local integration context. The study provides new evidence on how removing civic obligations can shift the payoff to formal membership, especially for groups with marginal incentives to naturalize, and speaks to current debates as European states revisit conscription and the scope of civic duties. This version presents the research design, identification strategy, and pre-specified expectations; empirical estimates from the linked registers are forthcoming and reported here as labeled placeholders.

  • Anti-Muslim Bias and Naturalization in Switzerland
    With Mattia Cecchi.

    Abstract

    Do long-term migrants naturalize in response to visible increases in host country hostility? This paper examines the naturalization behavior of eligible Muslim-origin migrants in Switzerland in the aftermath of a 2009 popular initiative that introduced a ban on the construction of new minarets. We hypothesize that the initiative, by signaling anti-Muslim bias among Swiss voters, may plausibly have shifted naturalization decisions in either of two directions: eligible migrants may have held on to their non-Swiss identity (reactive identification, implying lower uptake) or sought to secure their formal membership in the Swiss national community (protective assimilation, implying higher uptake). To assess which response dominated, we use registry data and a doubly robust difference-in-differences design comparing eligible Muslim-origin and non-Muslim origin individuals before and after the 2009 vote.