Mark I. Vail

I am an accomplished scholar of European politics, with a particular focus on German and French social and economic policy and political institutions. A fluent German speaker, I have spent years conducting fieldwork in Germany, including numerous stints as a Visiting Professor at leading German universities and institutes. I have published two books with leading university presses and more than two dozen peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. I have also published many other, shorter relevant works, including a 2025 review of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s memoir for the Brussels Institute for Geopolitics. My most recent book, The Hobbled State: Fractured Politics in Contemporary Germany (forthcoming from Agenda Publishing), focuses on the questions of German state power and the viability of the country’s political-economic model.