Short Bio
Nathalie Behnke is full professor and head of the working group 'Public Administration, Public Policy' at the Institute of Political Science of the Technical University Darmstadt.
She studied political science, history and methods of empirical social research at the universities of Bamberg and Bologna. During her studies, she received a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes). In 2003, she received her doctoral degree from the Distance Learning University in Hagen for her thesis “Ethics in Politics and Administration”. In 2009, she received a professorship for 'Empirical Social Research' at the Ruhr University in Bochum, in 2010 she moved to a professorship for 'Public Administration' at the University of Konstanz. In 2018 she received her current position at the TU Darmstadt.
Her research is located at the intersection of public administration, comparative federalism and multilevel governance. In research projects she investigated the role of senior civil servants in daily processes of negotiation and coordination between federal units; policies of accommodation in divided societies; the reform of fiscal federalism in Germany; dynamics of federal constitutional reforms; and the function of ethics measures in politics and administration.
Among others, she publishes in 'Publius: The Journal of Federalism', 'Regional & Federal Studies', 'European Journal of Political Research'. She publishes journal articles and contributions to edited books in English and German on public administration and federalism issues. She co-authored several textbooks on research methodology and guest edited a number of journal special issues.
In 2012, she was elected as judge of the constitutional court of Bade-Wurttemberg. Since 2014, she has been member of the editorial board of 'Regional & Federal Studies' and since 2018 of 'Publius: The Journal of Federalism'
