Ruxandra is an LSE Fellow in Qualitative Methodology in the Department of Methodology. Prior to joining LSE in 2019, she completed a PhD in Political Science in the Department of Political Science at University College London.

Ruxandra's PhD investigated the relationship between prime ministers and parliaments in parliamentary democracies, mapping the mechanisms through which parliamentary actors may question prime ministers in 31 countries. Focusing on Canada, Australia, Ireland and the UK as case studies, her thesis also examined the functions performed by questioning mechanisms such as Prime Minister’s Questions: whether they facilitate accountability, or whether such mechanisms also contribute to other functions that parliaments perform in different political systems, such as conflict, support, and territorial representation.

She also worked as a Research Assistant at UCL's Constitution Unit, one of the UK’s leading research centres on British politics. Her work with the Unit mainly focused on the UK parliament, particularly voting behaviour in the House of Lords.

Ruxandra is currently working on a project exploring conflictual behaviour in different parliaments. She is also working on a project comparing party discipline mechanisms in parliamentary democracies, focusing on how political parties control how MPs ask parliamentary questions.

Research Interests

Ruxandra’s research interests are primarily in the field of comparative politics and comparative  legislative studies: parliaments, legislatures, and the operation of parliamentary rules of procedure across countries. She is also interested in British politics, particularly UK parliamentary politics. More broadly, she is interested in qualitative methodology and methods: the role of concepts in political science, comparative and case study research design, and qualitative text analysis.