I grew up in the lovely town/village/city (depends on your own definition) of Glarus, in the rural, (Swiss)German-speaking part of Switzerland. Six years primary school, six years high school – nothing much happened. I first became interested in politics through reading the newspaper, while eating lunch, something that my parents thankfully tolerated. When I decided to write my Maturaarbeit on political jokes, I found out how much you can learn when getting involved with people, politicians and non-politicians alike. After high school, none of my friends knew what to study but were keen on making money – I knew what to study and had no interest in money. So I moved to Fribourg to study Political Science of Central and Eastern Europe. I learnt French not in the University but through football. An exchange year in Rome allowed me to learn my other de iure mother tongue. After graduating with an MA thesis on semi-presidentialism in Romania, I worked for two years at the Institute of Federalism in Fribourg (IFF). I got married ad things started to roll more quickly: I moved to Tbilisi for six months, back to Glarus for three, enrolled in the PhD programme at Kent, moved back to Glarus over summer, then back to UK, then thanks to my wife to amazing Galway, Ireland, for another six months where I finished my PhD thesis. After this it was back to Glarus for a short while and then in summer 2013 to Bern, where we have lived ever since.

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