Professor Christel Koop

Christel Koop is a Professor of Political Economy. Her research focuses on regulation, central banking, and other areas of economic policy-making, both at the national and EU-level. She is particularly interested in the independence, accountability and legitimacy of technocratic decision-making.

Christel holds a BA and MPhil degree in political science from Leiden University, in the Netherlands, and obtained her PhD degree in political and social sciences from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. Before joining the department, she was Fellow in Public Policy and Administration at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Click here to see her Google Scholar page and here for her personal webpage.

Christel is currently one of the principal investigators on the international research project "Reconnecting citizens to the administrative state?" (Reconnect), which runs from 2020 to 2023.

Teaching

• The Politics of Policy-Making (Undergraduate module, year 3)
• The Politics of Regulation (Postgraduate module)

Office hours

Christel’s office hours in the spring term are Mondays 16.30 to 17.30, and Fridays 16.30 to 17.30. Please send a message to christel.koop@kcl.ac.uk to arrange a meeting, including your preference for an online or in-person meeting.

PhD Supervision

Current PhD researchers

• Mayang Rizky – “Understanding citizens’ attitudes towards digital markets” (first supervisor)
• Matteo Nebbiai - “Building digital markets: The impact of voluntary regulation on the personal data economy” (first supervisor)
• Santiago Quintero - 'The politics of impatient bureaucracies' (second supervisor)

Recently completed PhD projects

• Michele Scotto di Vettimo (now University of Exeter) – “Responsive against all the odds? Exploring the link between public opinion and policies in the European Union” (first supervisor)
• Aslı Unan (now Humboldt University) – “Essays on the dynamics of policymaking and policy preference reversal” (second supervisor)
• Stuart Turnbull-Dugarte (now University of Southampton) – “Politics constrained: The political consequences of the financial crisis and EU economic intervention in Western Europe” (first supervisor)
• José Bolaños (now London School of Economics and Political Science) – "Competitiveness in mixed governance frameworks: On the success of private certification schemes" (first supervisor)
• Philip Kessler (now European Commission) – "Reinventing the economic constitution: How and why competition authorities in Western Europe have turned to cooperative enforcement styles" (first supervisor) 
• Philipp Broniecki – (now University of Oslo) "Informal bargaining in bicameral systems: Explaining delegation by the Council of the European Union and the European Parliament" (external supervisor)
• Slobodan Tomic (now University of York) - "Explaining enforcement patterns of anti-corruption agencies: Comparative analysis of five Serbian, Croatian, and Macedonian anti-corruption agencies" (external supervisor)

Recent peer-reviewed publications

• Christel Koop, Christine Reh and Edoardo Bressanelli (2022). Agenda‐setting under pressure: Does domestic politics influence the European Commission? European Journal of Political Research 61 (1): 46-66.
• Good news reduces trust in government and its efficacy: The case of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine announcement" (with Shaun Hargreaves Heap, Kostas Matakos, Aslı Unan and Nina Weber). PLOS ONE 16 (12): e0260216 (2021).
• Christel Koop and Martin Lodge (2020). British economic regulators in an age of politicisation: From the responsible to the responsive regulatory state? Journal of European Public Policy 27(11): 1612-1635. 
• Christel Koop and Philip Kessler (2021). Keeping control of regulation? Domestic constraints on the creation of independent authorities in emerging and developing economies. Early view in Governance 34(2): 545-564.
• Edoardo Bressanelli, Christel Koop and Christine Reh (2020). EU Actors under pressure: Politicisation and depoliticisation as strategic responses. Journal of European Public Policy 27 (3): 329-341. (click here for a blog post on the special issue and here for the King's news story)
• Christine Reh, Edoardo Bressanelli and Christel Koop (2020). Responsive withdrawal? The politics of EU agenda-setting. Journal of European Public Policy 27 (3): 419-438.
• Maja Kluger Dionigi and Christel Koop (2019). Losing out on substance but winning procedurally? The European Parliament and accountability in crisis legislation. West European Politics 42 (4): 776–802. (click here for blog post on this article)
• Christel Koop and Christine Reh (2019). Europe’s bank and Europe’s citizens: Accountability, transparency – legitimacy? Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law 26 (1): 63–80.
• Christel Koop, Christine Reh and Edoardo Bressanelli (2018). When politics prevails: Parties, elections and loyalty in the European Parliament. European Journal of Political Research 57 (3): 563–586.
• Christel Koop and Chris Hanretty (2018). Political independence, accountability, and the quality of regulatory decision-making. Comparative Political Studies 51 (1): 38–75.
• Christel Koop and Martin Lodge (2017). What is regulation? An interdisciplinary concept analysis. Regulation & Governance 11 (1): 95–108.