I also lived and worked in California (Berkeley), New York, and at Harvard - and now I am here. I am Associate Professor for Political Science and Director of the Center for the Studies of Imperfections in Democracies (http://disc.ceu.hu) at Central European University.

Together with my Italian wife, we are fighting the demographic decline of together three countries that are all in dire need of this support: our two children were born in Hungary and have dual Italian and German citizenship.


1. When did you arrive in Hungary and what brought you here?
I arrived in Fall 2004.

2. Have you ever been an expatriate elsewhere?
For almost half my life by now (Italy, USA, Spain, Argentina)

3. What surprised you most about Hungary?
Most people speak Hungarian

4. Friends are in Budapest for a weekend - what must they absolutely see and do?
Rush hour ... the subway packed with hundreds of people ... and ... absolute silence! Literally nobody is talking. Beyond that, also the baths are not bad - and certainly noisier (presumably because of the non-Hungarian tourists)

5. What is your favourite Hungarian food?
Pasta aglio-olio-peperoncino

6. What is never missing from your refrigerator?
A good Hungarian white wine

7. What is your favourite Hungarian word?
Lichthof

8. What do you miss the most from home?
I'd say 'my family' ... but they are living with me here. So there is not really anything I am urgently missing (perhaps also because I am often traveling to Germany and Italy anyway)

9. What career other than yours would you love to pursue?
Winemaker - and I am doing my first steps in this direction

10. What's a job you would definitely never want?
Cook in a submarine

11. Where did you spend your last vacation?
Difficult to say, as I have the (bad) habit to combine work and vacation trips. The closest to vacation was our family trip last summer to Tuscany where we visited my wife's family.

12. Where do you hope to spend your next one?
Casa Vino at Lake Balaton

13. What was your favourite band, film, or hobby as a teen?
'Top Secret' with Val Kilmer, arguably still one of the films most densely packed with absurd but funny jokes.

14. What can't you resist?
The chocolate my wife buys for, but then hides from, my 4 year old son

15. Red wine or white?
Red, especially after some good white and rose

16. Book or movie?
Bovie, I mean mook

17. Morning person or night person?
Both. It is the time in between that often makes me feel tired.

18. Which social issue do you feel most strongly about?
Inequality and all the injustices it causes

19. Buda side or Pest side?
Pest, for sure

20. What would you say is your personal motto?
Be in peace with yourself, because then you also have some of it left for others.