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Geschwister-Scholl-Institut für Politikwissenschaft
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München |
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Welcome to the Chair of Comparative Political Science!
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The team of researchers based at the Chair of Comparative Political Science is dedicated to the study of consolidated democracies and the challenges they face, with a focus on European democracies. We cover a wide range of topics such as crisis politics and its long-term consequences for the functioning of democracies, challenges related to the integration of migrants, the contentious role of constitutional courts in law-making and the ever more challenging mobilization of citizens in individualizing societies. Our interests lay in political parties, civil society organizations and citizens as much as in parliaments, governments and courts, whether they are operating on the national, regional or European level. We engage in theoretically informed, systematic empirical analysis, highlighting the importance of a tight integration of theory, substance and method. While building on insights across the social sciences including political science, sociology and comparative law, we combine in our work a variety of methods including state-of-the art quantitative, experimental and qualitative methods. You can find out more about the research interests of the members of LMU's Chair of Comparative Politics here and an overview over our ongoing research projects here. |
News and announcements
New article published in Democratization: "Studying the shrinking and expansion of civil society space in Europe" by Nicole Bolleyer, Adam Eick, Paula Falci & colleagues
In their most recent article, Nicole Bolleyer, Adam Eick, Paula Falci and their colleagues study a worrying trend: many regimes – including established democracies – increasingly adopt legal provisions that curtail civil society organizations’ (CSOs) capacity to survive, operate, and perform key tasks. Their research maps annual change in CSO regulation across 12 European countries between 2000 and 2022. Alongside the growth of both legal obligations and benefits, the data suggest a pronounced increase in obligations regulating CSO voice, an area critical for CSOs to play a political role in democracies. You can find out more about their work here.
New article published in European Union Politics: "Representation of environmental issues: Is there a link between campaign and legislative behaviour in the European Parliament?" by Clara Molas
Clara Molas' new article investigates the link between Members of the European Parliament's campaign salience and legislative behaviour, focusing on environmental issues. By analyzing 50,393 campaign tweets and MEP's roll-call votes on amendments related to emissions reduction, Clara shows that MEPs who focused more on environmental issues during the campaign cast more pro-environmental votes, showing how the European Parliament can exercise its representative role in domains relevant for EU policy. Read the full article here.
New book published by Cambridge University Press: Demobilising the Far Right, by Michael Zeller
Michael Zeller's book presents a comparative study of large far-right demonstration campaigns in Austria, England, and Germany over the last three decades (1990-2020). Demonstrations are a central tactic of many movements, particularly the far right. Studying the campaigns built around them not only helps to understand demobilisation, but also offers insights into a persistent threat to democratic societies. Using qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to analyse dozens of cases, the book reveals diverse patterns of factors that cause far-right campaigns to demobilise and, going further, uses process-tracing techniques to identify mechanisms underlying these patterns. The book thereby deals with an urgent phenomenon, far-right activism, and contributes to an underdeveloped area of social movement theory.
New book published by Springer: Soft Law and National Courts in the European Union, by Adam Eick
Adam Eick's book examines how national courts use EU soft law – instruments that are legally non-binding but can have significant practical and legal consequences. Through quantitative mapping, the book reveals that, while courts rarely use soft law, they are doing so increasingly. Case studies demonstrate that such cases can have significant effects for those involved and policy outcomes, for example on the provision of welfare services by non-state actors.
New book published by Springer: Sociopolitical Conditions and Migrant Integration in Western Europe, by Michael Neureiter
Michael Neureiter's book brings new insights from social psychology to explore migrant integration in Western Europe. Through a series of survey studies it illustrates the importance of sociopolitical conditions, such as political polarization and discriminatory climates, for understanding cross-national variation in migrant integration outcomes. Neureiter investigates how migrants integrate; what factors facilitate or hinder successful integration; and how successes and failures along the way affect subsequent integration outcomes.
New CIVILSPACE article published in Governance: "Populism and the Strength of Freedom of Information Laws: Insights From European Countries (2000–2022)" by Fabrizio Di Mascio, Giuseppe Lucio Gaeta, Marzia Ippolito, and Vivian Spyropoulou
The article investigates whether populist parties serve as a corrective to democratic deficiencies by enhancing access to information, or if they represent a threat to transparency, thereby undermining democratic accountability. The research employs a dual-method approach that combines quantitative and qualitative analyses. The quantitative analysis draws on a novel dataset measuring the strength of Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation across 11 European countries from 2000 to 2022. To deepen these findings, the study incorporates an in-depth qualitative analysis of Hungary—a country characterized by the dominant position in government of a right-wing populist party. Results reveal that the effect of populist parties on access to information is contingent upon their degree of access to government power and their ideological orientation.
New book published by Oxford University Press: "Civil Society's Democratic Potential: Organizational Trade-Offs between Participation and Representation" by Nicole Bolleyer
In her book Civil Society’s Democratic Potential, Nicole Bolleyer explores which civil society organizations (CSOs) contribute to democracy, how, and why. Organized civil society, including interest groups, political parties, and service-oriented associations, is traditionally considered a cornerstone of democracy. Constituting the organizational fabric between government and society, these organizations encompass a wide diversity of entities thought to fundamentally contribute to both democratic participation and representation. However, CSOs’ readiness and ability to serve as venues for participation, vehicles of democratic representation, or indeed both at the same time, are increasingly questioned in political science, sociology and voluntary sector research alike.
Bringing those fields together, the author argues that two contrasting organizational templates – the ‘voluntary association’ and the ‘professionalized voluntary organization’ – allow theorizing fundamental trade-offs shaping CSOs’ performance on three dimensions accounting for their varying democratic contributions: participation, representation, and societal responsiveness. The study’s theoretical framework is examined using a mixed-methods design. The latter combines the analysis of survey data covering over 3,000 CSOs across four European democracies with qualitative case studies of the evolution of three CSOs – a political party, an interest group and a service-orientated organization – over the course of several decades.
The book is an open access publication and available here.
See for more information the Oxford University Press website.
Supplementary material can be accessed at the Oxford University Press companion website.
Editorial by Michael Zeller published in Der Standard: The Logic behind the Anti-AfD Protests
In his editorial for ”Der Standard” Michael Zeller focuses on the recent Anti-AfD protests in Germany and its possible impacts. He maintains that demonstrations have different prospects for achieving an impact in political and legal arenas. Both arenas are explored in his editorial. Michael Zeller further presents interesting data that give information about the scope of the Anti-AfD protests in Germany.
Successful EU grant application for Michael Zeller: "The European Violent Right-Wing Extremism Monitoring (EVREM) Project"
The project builds upon the “Knowledge Package of Violent Right-Wing Extremist Organisations, Symbols, and Manifestoes” (‘PREO’) commissioned by the EU in 2021. The core team delivering the initial PREO project (Prof. Matthew Feldman, Project Manager; and the Coordination Integration Experts, Dr. Michael Zeller and Dr. Michael Vaughan) will provided updated knowledge infrastructure about proscribed right-wing extremist groups as well as expanding to cover active violent right-wing extremist organisations.
This knowledge infrastructure is drawn from teams of country experts (involving over 50 individual experts) covering all EU Member States as well as several influential neighbouring countries. The EVREM project also adds key specialists in social media research, data scraping, and analysis (via Pyrra; Rebecca Jones, Dr. Welton Chang, and Eric Curwin, acting as Technical Integration Experts) as well as in right-wing extremist manifestoes and violent activism by so-called ‘incels’ (via the Taxonomy and Manifestoes Databases Coordination Expert, Pragya Rai). The group leader for this project is the European Centre for Democracy Development, directed by Dr. Valery Engel. As a whole, the EVREM project will deliver excellence in the monitoring of Violent Right-Wing Extremism within EU Member States as well as in influential neighbouring countries. The project is funded by the European Commission, Directorate-General for Migration and Home Affairs.