Cultural representations of the Holocaust lower Holocaust fatigue and improve feelings toward Jews and refugees. Some even increase the engagement in collective action. This shows a new study by WZB researcher Berenike Firestone and her co-authors.
We congratulate WZB researcher Fabio Ellger and Heike Klüver for winning the Gordon Smith and Vincent Wright Memorial Prize 2025. Awarded by Taylor & Francis and the editors of West European Politics, the prize recognises their important analysis on the influence of radical right parties.
What contribution do mainstream parties in Western democracies make to the normalization of far-right ideas and issues? A significant one, as the latest study by WZB researchers Teresa Völker and Daniel Saldivia Gonzatti shows.
WZB researcher Johannes Gerschewski has been a Heisenberg Fellow since January 2026. He is conducting research in his new project “Democratic Self-Defense in Times of Autocratization”, where he explores how democracies can resist and revert ongoing autocratization processes. The Heisenberg Fellowship is funded by the German Research Foundation.
Controlling the digital public sphere is costly. To achieve this, authoritarian governments often rely on direct investments from other autocracies in Internet infrastructure, as shown in a new study by Lisa Garbe.
The WZB wishes you happy holidays and a good start to the New Year! The graphic illustrates the finding that democratization and autocratization processes spread in waves around the world.
High levels of inequality lead to an unrealistically optimistic view of opportunities for social advancement—a mechanism that stabilizes social inequality. This shows a new WZB study by Julia Baumann and Yiming Liu.
The Senate of the Leibniz Association attests to the excellent scientific achievements of the WZB in the evaluation report and recommends continued funding. The WZB is "one of the world's top research institutions in its domain."
On November 5, Yale economist Pinelopi “Penny” Koujianou Goldberg was awarded the A. SK Social Science Award during an inspiring ceremony at the WZB. A follow-up report with pictures from the 10th A. SK Award Ceremony.
Call for Applications: Kohli Fellowship at the WZB
We are delighted to announce the call for applications for the Kohli Fellowship in Sociology 2026 at the WZB, which promotes researchers who have finished their dissertation with excellent success. The deadline for applications is November 16, 2025.
