I am Professor of European Law and Legislative Studies at the University of Eastern Finland (UEF) Law School and Principal Investigator of the Kone Foundation research project on political influence and lobbying in Finnish municipal politics (LoSKa, 2023–2027).
My research interests centre on law and democracy in EU and national contexts. In recent years, I have written on soft law, lobbying and the revolving-door phenomenon, and the national governance of EU structural funds. Methodologically, my work is interdisciplinary and socio-legally oriented, with a particular emphasis on qualitative expert interviews. I am Executive Editor at EJELS, the Journal of European Empirical Legal Studies.
In addition to my monograph Adjudicating New Governance (Routledge, 2015), my work has appeared in leading journals in the field. I am co-editor of EU Soft Law in the Member States (Hart Publishing, 2021), Law, Legal Expertise and EU Policy-Making (Cambridge University Press, 2022), Research Handbook on Soft Law (Edward Elgar, 2023), and the Oxford Handbook of Lobbying and its Regulation (OUP, 2026).
I have held visiting positions at Lund University (2025), Melbourne Law School (2023), Yale Law School (2019–2020), the European University Institute in Florence (2007, 2014–2015), Columbia Law School (2010), and University College London (2008–2009).
I have served in several expert positions relating to lobbying and its regulation. Since June 2023, I have acted as Deputy Chair of the Advisory Board for the Finnish Transparency Register. In 2020, I received the Academy of Finland Award for Social Impact in recognition of my work on lobbying.