WZB - Berlin Social Science Center

Image
Clothes hang on a chain-link fence to dry
TerryJ / iStock / Getty Images Plus

When Working Isn’t Enough

In the United States, around 10 million people ­­are at risk of becoming part of the working poor. Leaving home, becoming a parent, or going through a divorce can dramatically increase this exceptionally high figure. Zachary van Winkle and Emanuela Struffolino are the first to study how such family demographic transitions can push people into at-work poverty and breed social exclusion.

Image
Immigration table
asiandeligh/ iStock / Getty Images Plus

Radical Right Success and Mainstream Parties’ Anti-Immigrant Policy Shifts

Radical right parties have seen increasing electoral success. What does this imply for parties and party systems? Do established mainstream parties adjust their policy positions in response to successful radical right parties? Werner Krause and Tarik Abou-Chadi tackle these questions in a new blog post.

PreviousNext
New publication

Democracy and Crisis

A new book edited by Wolfgang Merkel and Sascha Kneip discusses the potential causes of the current “crisis of democracy”. Does this stem from a lack of participation by citizens, the absence of trust in the political elite, or does the real root of the problem lie with political institutions themselves? Among other topics, the researchers analyze the role of globalization and deregulation and demonstrate why challenges to democracy have morphed into phenomena of crisis.

Image
Dress shoes standing next to Rich and Poor
pick-uppath/iStock / Getty Images Plus

Healing Social Divides

How to bring back social cohesion, asks WZB President Jutta Allmendinger in the Washington Post. Social interaction between different social circles — whether through discourse, clarification, affirmation, or examination of changing norms and values — is crucial for any democratic society to function. But people need also the security of the familiar, emphasizes Allmendinger.

Automated analysis of political language

The growing digital availability of political communication offers many new opportunities for studying collective decision-making in modern societies. Corresponding tools for automated text analyses, however, are often developed in marketing applications or are available for English material only. Christian Rauh has thus developed and validated a dictionary for quantifying the sentiment expressed in German political language.

New study

Help from home

It’s a well-known fact that becoming unemployed takes a toll on individuals’ health. There is also little doubt about the fact that families can cushion the blow of losing a job. This study is the first to investigate the concrete impact of this family support – be it emotional or financial – and the role played by the external welfare state.

Image
Porträtfoto Anette Fasang
David Ausserhofer

Kanter Award 2018

Congratulations to Anette Fasang and Silke Aisenbrey for winning the 2018 Kanter Award! Their article, “The interplay of work and family trajectories over the life course: Germany and the United States in comparison,” was selected as the best work-family research paper.

 

Religion and Educational Achievement

Children from an immigrant background remain disadvantaged in the German educational system. Many studies ascribe this to the educational background of the parents and the socio-economical position of the family. Benjamin Schulz, researcher at the WZB and Sarah Carol (Cologne University) have now researched what role religiosity and membership in a religious community plays in Germany using data from the National Education Panel (NEPS). The findings point to a complex situation.

WZB in the media

rbb inforadio, 19 September
Citizen Science: Bürgerforschung und Zivilgesellschaft
Washington Post, 19 September
For the benefit of society, get out of your comfort zone
HNA, 12 September
Kann es wirklich nicht genug Antifa geben? So gefährlich ist die radikale Linke

Media coverage

Research

The WZB Berlin Social Science Center investigates fundamental societal issues. Our focus is on education and work, migration, democracy and autocracy, international politics and law. At the WZB researchers from various disciplines work together – mainly from sociology, political science, economics, law and psychology.