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Political Science at FAU

The Institute of Political Science has been a driving force of the discipline in Germany since its foundation in 1961. The Institute’s locally anchored research groups stand out for their strong scientific output and practical orientation, as well as their international outlook. Our research and teaching focuses on challenges to democracies and states that deviate from the democratic norm, on the accelerating changes in the international order, including transnational phenomena, and on managing technological innovation. Read more…

Why are some democracies more resilient than others? How can the resilience capacity of democracies be operationalized and measured? In the recently published article “Democratic Resilience in the Twenty-First Century: Search for an Analytical Framework and Explorative Analysis”, published Political Studies, Aurel Croissant (Heidelberg University) and Lars Lott (FAU) examine how democratic resilience capacity can be operationalized and measured and to what extent it strengthens the resilience of democracies to autocratization.

On 24 June, in collaboration with FAU's Center for Human Rights and the International Nuremberg Principles Academy, we hosted a talk by Harvard professor Kathryn Sikkink on the emergence of individual criminal accountability for war crimes, mass atrocities and human rights violations, as well as the...

A new essay by Dr. Alexander Kruska, entitled “As gently as the ripe apple falls from the tree”: Political Rule, Rightful Government, and the Founding of the American Republic in Prussian Old-Conservatism, has recently been published. The piece appears in the edited volume Representations and Uses ...

In the context of current debates on migration and asylum, Prof. Dr. Petra Bendel has been approached by several media outlets on her expertise. We have compiled a selection of articles (in German) here: Interviews: „Hintergrund zum Weltflüchtlingstag – Gespräch mit Prof. Petra Bendel“ (BR2,...

In the last ten years, there has been an international rise in extreme right-wing movements and parties, along with an accompanying authoritarian formation of society. In the course of this increasingly acute development, science and universities have become a field of cultural struggle for the extr...

On May 29, 2019, the city council of Erlangen declared climate emergency. Today, almost six years later, the question arises: What remains of the decision? To answer this question, the Chair of Comparative Politics will show a documentary film about the Erlangen Climate Council. Afterwards, representatives from science, civil society and the city administration will discuss the implementation of the climate goals in Erlangen.