Archive Events 2023

For much of history, societies have violently oppressed ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities. It is no surprise that many who passionately believe in social justice came to believe that members of marginalized groups need to take pride in their identity to resist injustice.

When and why do race/class interactions shape public policy disputes in American cities?  It depends on the policy – very much for policing and housing development, surprisingly little for public schools and public sector pensions. But race reappears, sometimes in surprising ways.

Geringe Jahrgangsstärken, steigende Bildungsaspirationen seitens der Jugendlichen, unbesetzte Ausbildungsplätze: Daraus könnte man schlussfolgern, dass die berufliche Ausbildung an Attraktivität verloren hat und dass wir es zunehmend mit einem Markt zu tun haben, den weniger die Betriebe bestimmen als die Jugendlichen. Dieses Fazit ist so jedoch nicht richtig, denn dabei wird eine Gruppe ignoriert: die Gruppe der Jugendlichen und jungen Erwachsenen ohne Berufsausbildung.

The increasing availability of digital video material has led to its widespread use in the social sciences, especially in processual and relational approaches. However, methodological reflection has lagged behind this development.

The roundtable participants will discuss the opportunities and challenges involved in combining text and video sources for studying protest in the digital age.

Human rights are one of the major innovations of the 20th century. Their emergence after World War II and global uptake promised a new world of universalized humanity in which human dignity would be protected, and individuals would have agency and flourish. The proliferation of digital data (i.e.

A week after being awarded the A.SK Bright Mind Award at the WZB, Harvard economist Stefanie Stantcheva will give a WZB Talk on the origins and implications of zero-sum thinking - the belief that gains for one individual or group tend to come at the cost of others.

Die interdisziplinäre Veranstaltung zielt darauf ab, mit kollaborativen Arbeitsmethoden zu experimentieren und eine bessere Einsicht in die Schlüsselaspekte der Spieleproduktion zu entwickeln. Hierfür werden die unterschiedlichen Fähigkeiten der Teilnehmer:innen, wie analytisches Denken, kreative Problemlösungsstrategien, Visualisierungskompetenz und Transferorientierung, in interdisziplinäre Teams eingebracht.

The A.SK Social Science Award, one of the most prestigious distinctions in the social sciences, was donated by Shu Kai Chan in 2007 and is awarded every other year. The 2023 award recipient is Daron Acemoglu, Institute Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

On November 14, before being presented with one of the the A.SK Bright Mind Awards later that day at the WZB, the sociologist Filiz Garip will give a specialized talk for her peers and anyone interested in the subject matter of sociological methods in researching migration:

On November 13, the evening before being presented with the A.SK Social Science Award at the WZB, the renowned economist Daron Acemoglu will give a specialized talk for his peers and anyone interested in the subject matter:

The threat of nuclear war between the United States, Russia or China is greater today than at any time in the past 60 years. The talk will analyze the nature of the threat and argue that the deterrent of mutually assured destruction (MAD), though continuing to impose a disciplining  effect, is an unreliable safeguard against nuclear escalation, generally and particularly in today's strategic landscape. A radical focus on strengthening and building a legal and political infrastructure aimed at avoiding and ultimately, precluding, great power conflict is necessary.

Die Demokratie ist heute mit einer außergewöhnlichen Verdichtung an externen Krisen konfrontiert: Klimawandel, Migration, Pandemie, Krieg und entgrenzter Kapitalismus. Doch was meinen wir eigentlich, wenn wir von „der“ Demokratie sprechen?

In late 2018, the local government of Madrid implemented a low emission zone (LEZ) in the central district of the city. Although the primary goal of the policy was to enhance air quality, it might also have implications for other related outcomes. For instance, extensive research has documented the detrimental effect of polluted air on academic performance. Consequently, if Madrid’s LEZ was successful in reducing traffic-related emissions, we might observe an improvement in academic performance among students schooled in the LEZ area.

Wie steht es in Deutschland um die Chancen, einen Kindergartenplatz und den gewünschten Schul- oder Studienplatz zu erhalten? Und wie wichtig ist es überhaupt, dass ein Kind in den Kindergarten geht und welche Schule es besucht? Inwiefern werden die Lebenschancen durch einen Kindergartenplatz, den Platz an der Wunschschule oder -universität beeinflusst? Wir sprechen über Zulassungsverfahren, Zulassungskriterien und die Frage, ob sie fair und effektiv sind.

In vielen Bereichen der Gesellschaft haben die nationalen Grenzen ihre einstige Bedeutung als Barriere für soziale Interaktionen verloren. So entstehen grenzüberschreitende Probleme, oft mit globalen Auswirkungen, die nur von internationalen Institutionen wirksam angegangen werden können.

Johannes Gerschewski will present his new book "The Two Logics of Autocratic Rule" that has just been published with Cambridge University Press. The presentation will be followed by comments from Seraphine Maerz (Goethe University Frankfurt) and Michael Bernhard (University of Florida).

Keynote speaker for the WZB Annual Address on Migration and Diversity is Nina Glick Schiller (University of Manchester, UK | Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Germany).

Welche Rolle spielen Einkommensunterschiede und soziale Ungleichheit für die Unterstützung einer rechtspopulistischen Partei? Welche Rolle spielen wahrgenommener sozialer Abstieg und finanzielle sowie allgemeine Unzufriedenheit? Maja Adena und Steffen Huck diskutieren ihre Forschung aus vier Wellen repräesentativer Surveys mit deutschen Wählern und Wählerinnen und werden dabei auch weniger erwartbare Ergebnisse präsentieren.

Over the past forty years, since the Reagan-era paradigm shift to deregulation, income and wealth inequality in the United States has grown significantly faster than in other advanced industrial democracies. High economic inequality has contributed to severe political polarization, socio-economic and geographic segmentation, and erosion of democratic institutions. Analogous processes in Russia and China followed their market openings over the same period.

The current crisis of the American political system is not caused simply by cult-like following of a demagogic leader but is more endemic, rooted in the structure of the U.S. constitution. The U.S. constitution, written in a pre-democratic era, is the oldest written constitution in the world. America has democratized over the past two centuries, like other countries, as citizens have done the hard work of making their constitutions more democratic. But over the past fifty years, this effort has essentially stopped, thwarted by a constitution that now appears almost unamendable.

Über die beste Förderung von Kindern und Familien wird in diesen Tagen viel debattiert. Politischer Streit entzündet sich dabei vorrangig an Verteilungsfragen, aber auch entlang parteipolitischer Überzeugungen. Lassen sich diese Konflikte um Ressourcen überhaupt lösen und wenn ja, wie? Ist es Zeit für eine neue, ganzheitlich gedachte Sozialpolitik?

Jutta Allmendinger und Michael Wrase skizzieren ihre Ideen für eine Sozialpolitik, die drei Politikfelder verbindet: Bildung, Armutsbekämpfung und Familienpolitik.

Das Leben in unseren Städten verändert sich. Der Klimawandel, der Zuzug vieler Menschen und die Verdichtung von Stadtvierteln spielen eine große Rolle. Schätzungen gehen heute davon aus, dass bis Mitte dieses Jahrhunderts 2,5 Mrd. Menschen in Städten leben werden. Das Thema „Stadt und Gesundheit“ wird in den nächsten Jahrzehnten immer wichtiger werden – in der Welt, in Deutschland und in Berlin. Das deuten schon heute Hitzewellen und Luftverschmutzung an.

While the literature on populist radical right parties (PRRPs) has focused on PRRPs on the fringes of the party system, little is known about the grassroots activism of PRRPs that have already entered the political mainstream and have become key players in national politics. Using two paradigmatic cases, the Italian League and the Swiss People’s Party (SVP), Adrian Favero and Mattia Zulianello have investigated when, how and why these parties resort to activism on the local level. Adrian Favero will present the findings of the project.

Social media is a central part of the public sphere and as such of central importance for democracy. In its current form social media is arguably in part responsible for democratic backsliding. The question is how social media should be regulated so that its deliberative democratic potential is enhanced and its dystopian tendencies are held in check. The talk analysis competing approaches that seek to achieve this and analyzes the legal frameworks governing these choices.

New approaches to research on philanthropy have deepened the understanding of giving behavior. They include the ascent of field experiments on fundraising where charities are perceived as active parties. Others include the influence of behavioral economics on our understanding of how social interactions affect donations. The channels through which people donate have recently changed as well. For example, the role of online activities like donation-based crowdfunding is increasing.

Hate crimes. Misinformation and conspiracy theories. Foiled white-supremacist plots. The signs of growing far-right extremism are all around us, and communities around the globe are struggling to understand how so many people are being radicalized and why they are increasingly attracted to violent movements.

Previous research (Carey and Gohdes, 2021) concludes most journalist killings by the state occur in democracies. This paper investigates the link between regime type and journalist killings and argues that democracies are not more hostile to journalists than autocracies. In fact, liberal democratic regimes are the safest of regimes for journalists, i.e. those with by far the least number of journalist killings by the state between 2002 and 2016.

What is the relationship between education and politics? How do government shaped education worldwide until our present day? Adrián del Rio presents a novel dataset on education systems worlwide and describes trends on political control and the politicized nature of education system. The dataset will help researchers and policy-makers to examine several questions about education and politics, improving the quality of policy advice. A subset of the dataset can be provided upon request.

Krisen bringen Veränderung. Die Covid-19-Pandemie hat Sicherheiten in Frage gestellt, Spannungen sichtbar gemacht und die Frage nach gesellschaftlichem Wandel aufgeworfen. Inzwischen ist vieles wieder „beim Alten“ – doch was heißt das in Zeiten von Klimakrise und Krieg überhaupt? Wie arbeiten wir und wie lassen sich Arbeit und Leben besser vereinbaren, welche Folgen hat der technische Wandel, welche Rolle kommt dem Staat zu und wohin soll es gehen in Anbetracht sich zuspitzender Krisen?

Many Muslim states have adopted a mixed legal system that combines an essentially Western structure with elements of Sharia in constitutions and legal statutes, implicitly or explicitly. The inclusion of Islamic law and principles in the legal system has at times extended to the West, notably with the establishment of “sharia courts”, or with the judicial use of the cultural argument to accommodate norms as supposedly derived from Islam.

Contact and conflict theory famously predict opposite effects of inter-ethnic exposure on anti-minority discrimination. Contact theory predicts that inter-ethnic contact reduces prejudice; whereas conflict theory predicts that inter-ethnic contact leads to more discrimination. The scope conditions for both theories, however, are vague; prior evidence is mostly correlational; and supportive field experiments have largely accrued in rarified settings.

Existing research in Germany based on survey reports suggest that patients with low income and non-German names are discriminated against both in access to health care and in treatment by specialists. However, because this research is mostly based on interviews with affected individuals, the findings are prone to bias. Field experiments can provide robust evidence of discrimination due to ethnic and socioeconomic background.

Content moderation is key to operations of social media platforms and a large part of this work is outsourced to the global economy. While allowing for cost efficiency and accessing local labor skills and knowledge, outsourcing is generally characterized by indeterminacies in the production process. Moreover, it is complicated by the dynamic character of social media platforms with continuous changes in user activities and moderation policies.

The Platform Governance Research Network brings together researchers interested in ‘platform governance’, broadly defined. From online labor markets and locally-tethered service delivery platforms, to social networks and cloud providers, our conference highlights cutting-edge conceptual and empirical work that engages with the politics and policy of the 21st century ‘platformized’ internet.

Homosexuality constitutes an entrenched taboo in many Muslim countries and communities. LGBT people of Muslim origin are often treated as out-groups and they face severe discrimination and mistreatment, either as a result of harsh laws or due to the homophobic attitude of their families and communities. What are the causes of this problem? Our guest panelists will discuss whether it stems from Islam or rather from other elements, such as culture, colonial heritage, or an incorrect interpretation of the sacred texts.

Discussants

This talk looks at platform governance and platform power through the lens of deplatforming sex, and deplatforming of sex through the lens of concentration of norm and infrastructure power. Based on a meta-analysis of ethnographic, interview and social media data associated with cases of deplatforming and replatforming sex on social media, the talk offers suggestions for reimagining platform governance and articulates a hope for a more sex-positive platform governance research agenda.

Soziale Ungleichheit ist mehr als nur die Frage nach wenig oder viel Geld. Auch die Berichterstattung darüber sollte deshalb mehr umfassen als nur Zahlen oder Einzelschicksale. Es geht um ein System und Strukturen, die nicht immer ausreichend beleuchtet werden. Wie können Medien besser über Ungleichheit recherchieren und berichten? Auf der Fachkonferenz diskutieren Journalist*innen gemeinsam mit Expert*innen, wie der Blick auf das Thema soziale Ungleicheit geweitet und geschärft werden kann.

Conservative political parties occupy a precarious position in liberal democracies. On the one hand, economic elites who tend to be protective of the status quo are a core constituency of most conservative parties. On the other hand, conservative parties must compete in democratic elections where majorities matter.

Over the last several decades, two seemingly contradictory trends have emerged: a rise in democracy assistance and a decline in democracy. What explains this disconnect? Although existing work provides some insight about democracy promotion’s mixed effects, more work is needed to understand the impact of additional, often understudied forms of assistance. I explore this puzzle on a panel of 136 nations from 1981-2015 by assessing how two types of democracy promotion – democracy promoting international nongovernmental organizations (DINGOs) and democracy aid – impact governance.

Deutschland hatte 2022 den Vorsitz der G7 inne. Wenn die G7-Präsidentschaft eines Landes endet, ist selten ein Resümee vorgesehen. Für die Arbeit des Beirats für Gleichstellungsfragen der G7 (Gender Equality Advisory Council GEAC) möchten wir das aber tun, damit die Erkenntnisse einer breiteren Öffentlichkeit bekannt gemacht werden.

Are Islam and liberal democracy compatible? Ahmet Kuru's keynote speech will address this complex question from a theoretical, historical and geopolitical perspective, in dialogue with WZB director Ruud Koopmans. After presenting the definition and historical formation of the two concepts, Kuru will examine the political attitudes of Islamists and secularists in various Muslim-majority countries. Focusing in particular on Islamists’ sharia-based state projects, he will show their incompatibility with liberal democracy.

Das europäische Asylsystem ist zum Lotteriespiel geworden: Geografische Lage, Geld, Fitness und Glück auf dem gefährlichen Land- und Seeweg bestimmen, wer es bis zur Grenze schafft, Asyl beantragen und einwandern kann. Wer es nicht schafft, hat das Nachsehen. Europa tut sich mit diesem System aber auch selbst keinen Gefallen.

Are teachers biased in their grading against certain demographic groups? Using data on more than 1 million Danish 9th grade students, we find evidence for small pro-girl and pro-migrant-background biases. We also document large variance in bias across teachers and a negative (“compensatory”) relationship between teacher bias and relative performance of the student group on standardized tests.

China’s Social Credit System is the most ambitious human metric in history, using technology to govern society and create the “perfect citizen.” I trace the historical roots of “governance-by-numbers” systems and show that the metrification of social and personal life also exists in Western societies. I point out the rise of a new governance system, shifting from the rule of law (“nomocracy”) to a system governed by numbers (“numerocracy”), and discuss the consequences for liberal democracies in terms of governance, citizenship, human rights, law & morality.

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Huber liest aus seinem Buch „Menschen, Götter und Maschinen – Eine Ethik der Digitalisierung“ und diskutiert mit Benjamin Minack.