My research interests lie at the intersection between comparative politics and public policy. I am particularly interested in the role of interest groups and transparency in politics. While the first area of research focuses on the examination of interest organisation's influence on public policy, the second explores the way in which contemporary governments have opened to public scrutiny through open data and other tools. I hope to advance new bridges between Comparative Politics and Public Policy Analysis by combining these two areas of research.

Current research projects:

InterCov Project: The Coronavirus crisis has exerted a major social and economic shock in countries worldwide. Both the pandemic itself, as well as the crisis management policies resulting from it, could entail big changes for the representation of different social and economic interests in public policy. The Interest Representation during the Coronavirus Crisis (InterCov) Project was initiated in May 2020 with the aim of assessing these effects of Covid-19 on interest representation and political advocacy. How did interest groups and companies represent their political interests during the Coronavirus crisis? How has this crisis affected their ability to mobilise, and express their views and needs to decision-makers? Who did decision-makers listen to? Our research team based at QUB, Univerisity of Copenhagen (KU) and Univerisity of Amsterdam (UvA) collected data from politically active interest groups and companies in ten polities in Europe, namely in Denmark, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Ireland, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Italy, France, and at the European Union (EU)-level in two rounds of surveys. From early June to mid-July 2020, a first online survey was conducted among ca. 6.000 organisations and large firms (report available here). The second round was conducted between late June and early August 2021. In total we collected responses from more than 1,400 different interest organisations. In April-May 2021, our team additionally conducted 12 focus group interviews with a total of 40 participating organisations in Ireland, Denmark and the Netherlands. Wiebke Marie Junk (KU), Marcel Hanegraaff (Uva), Joost Berkhout (UvA) and Ellis Aizenberg (Aahrus) are collaborators on this project. More information about this project can be found on: https://sites.google.com/view/michelecrepazcom/home/projects/intercov-project

Assessing The Effects of Transparency Laws on Different Political Actors: Transparency is a cornerstone of democratic governance because it allows the public to monitor governmental activity and see which private interests influence the state. Governments worldwide take strides in developing regulations to ensure transparency in governance, as have intergovernmental organisations such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the European Union (EU), the World Bank, and the Council of Europe. Having more transparency policies developed means that citizens are more likely to have increased knowledge and trust in governments claiming to be ‘transparent'. The aim that guides this project includes the development of a public policy-oriented approach to the study of transparency through the policy evaluation of the effects of different transparency laws on the behaviour and attitudes of different political actors. To this end, we first surveyed 1,700 politically active interest groups in Ireland to explore the effects of transparency on the lobbying profession. Secondly, we collected data on the way journalists use transparency portals thus acting as mediators of transparency. Finally, we conducted a survey experiment on a nationally-representative sample of 1,800 participants (Republic of Ireland) to explore the effects of transparency on political trust and perceived corruption. Gizem Arikan, Raj Chari and Liam Kneafsey at TCD are collaborators on this project. The project is supported by the Irish Research Council (GOIPD/2018/52). More information about the project is available at: https://sites.google.com/view/michelecrepazcom/home/projects/effects-of-transparency-laws