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  • Solikris publication in ISI series

    The Solikris consortium is glad to present its special issue published in the ISI publications called „Veränderung durch Krisen? Solidarität und Entsolidarisierung in Deutschland und Europa“ and edited by Christina Eder, Alexia Katsanidou and Ann-Kathrin Reinl. Comprising contributions from all work packages of the project, it contains interesting and highly relevant research results concerning a variety of topics. The authors looked at the crises Germany and Europe went through in the last years from differing perspectives. The focus is on Germany and the differences between the area of former GDR and the FRG in the context of thirty years of reunification.
    In the first contribution, Heiko Giebler, Sandra Horvath & Bernhard Weßels (all WZB) conduct research on the change in the perception of legitimacy of the representative democracy after the German reunification. In the next chapter, Kathrin B. Busch (GESIS) looks at the development of the satisfaction with democracy in eastern and western Germany. The contributions by Anne-Marie Parth, Jale Tosun & Julia Weiß (all Heidelberg University) and Ann-Kathrin Reinl, Christina Eder & Alexia Katsanidou (all GESIS) focus on the topic of solidarity. The former examine the explanatory value of political trust for solidarity during the financial and migration crisis whereas the latter scrutinize the impact of transnational solidarity on electoral choice in the European Elections 2019. The following contribution by Boris Heizmann & Nora Huth (both GESIS) presents their research on the extent and reasons of migration related threat perception in east and west Germany. Finally, Steffen Pötzschke & Bernd Weiß set forth the GESIS Panel as central data collection infrastructure of the Solikris project.

    You can find the publication here (11.63 MB).

Our Workshop "Measuring European Solidarity", financed by the Leibniz Research Alliance Crises in a Globalised World, which took place in the end of January at GESIS in Cologne, has been a full-out success. Spread over the two days, we engaged with five different topics, namely: Defining Solidarity in Europe, Experimental Designs, Analyzing Discourse, Empirical Conceptualizations of Solidarity and Solidarity on Specific Policies. Through the presentations of the participants it was possible to engage with differing approaches to solidarity research and to get new insights for the own scientific work. They were followed by stimulating discussions which did not only take place during the Workshop but were continued during the breaks and the joint dinner in a typical cologne brewery. Prospectively, we plan a common publication resulting from the workshop in order to make the different approaches available to the wider scientific community.
We thank all the participants who came from all over Europe and are looking forward to a continuing scientific exchange!

We are looking forward to our interdisciplinary workshop 'Measuring European Solidarity' next week form the 27th to the 28th of January at GESIS in Cologne.
An interesting and intense program is planned out for the two days and we are happy to welcome the participants from all over Europe.
Some exciting insights from the workshop will be published on our Website after the event.

We would like to invite you to apply for our small-group workshop Measuring European Solidarity to be held at GESIS in Cologne on January 27th and 28th, 2020.
It is our ambition to create a multidisciplinary space that will allow us to debate the advancements in operationalisation and measurement of European Solidarity and to prepare a publication of a special issue for those of our participants that would like to contribute.
Funded by the Leibniz Research Alliance Research Group on Crises in a Globalized World, travel and accommodation costs as well as catering during the workshop will be fully covered for one author per paper.
Please see the attachment (210 kB) for further details.
If you are interested in participating, the deadline for abstracts (up to 500 words) is October 10th, 2019.

Shortly before this year’s European election, the Europe-themed ‘Kölner Themenwochen’ are taking place in Cologne. The European community has come across numerous challenges in the last years which have put the solidarity in and between the member states to the test repeatedly.
Relating to this, the Solikris consortium is going to present their research results in the form of posters and presentations and will be open for questions and remarks from the audience on the 22nd of May 2019, together with speakers from the GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, the University of Cologne, the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies and the Cologne Business School.
The event on the 22nd of May 2019 is going to be hosted by the GESIS Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences at 17:00h.

Link to program (Download (290 kB))

Solikris posters (Download (5.39 MB))

The Solikris consortium gathered at the WZB in Berlin to take stock of the first findings on the effects of crises on European democracies as well as to discuss future research endeavors and administrative issues.
The team members presented their first empirical findings on a wide array of topics ranging from the relationship between institutional trust and the success of mainstream parties, to the political attitudes and participation of young adults, transnational solidarity and Euroscepticism in times of economic crisis, and the effects of the migration crisis on attitudes towards immigration.
Moreover, the SOLIKRIS team discussed in detail current data gathering efforts concerning the examination of public opinion in Germany, the inclusion of different survey modules across European democracies and the gathering of social media data to measure public attitudes.
During these two days, the team also delineated future internal and external research collaborations which aim to further examine the effects of political, economic, and societal crises on Western democracies.
Next time the Solikris consortium will meet in the end of 2019 at the University of Heidelberg.

The team members of Solikris and the WZB hosted a well-received lecture as part of its lecture series “Attention: Democracy ”, inviting experts to have a conversation with academics, journalists and citizens on topics of highest societal relevance.
For this first Solikris event at the WZB, the team had the honor to host Professor Dr. Frank Decker  from the University of Bonn who spoke about “Populism in Times of Crises – Challenges for Democracy.”
In his presentation, Professor Decker discussed the definitions and conceptions of populism and then retraced the evolution and main characteristics of populist parties across European democracies by emphasizing the crucial role of contextual crises. You can watch a video of the event here.
The Solikris consortium wants to thank Professor Decker for the excellent presentation and everybody else for actively participating!
The next Solikris event at the WZB will take place in Spring 2019. More details will be announced soon!

Speakers  Audience  Speaker

The Solikris consortium is glad to present the project’s first policy brief. The topic is ‘Political trust in Germany and Europe in times of Europe wide crises’. In the policy brief a drop in political trust of European citizens since the financial crisis is identified. Especially the south- and east European countries were affected, which already started off with lower political trust than the rest of the EU. The years after the so called ‘refugee crisis’ list another drop, however only for a short period of time. Since political trust seems to play a central role in national elections, an increase in transparency in the process of political decision making and a stronger involvement of citizens is recommended. Download (558 kB)

Ann-Kathrin Reinl, research assistant in the Solikris Project, organises a Panel on "New Perspectives on Solidarity in Europe in Times of Crisis", together with colleagues from LMU Munich and University of Bremen at the forthcoming DVPW Research section Comparative Politics. Deadline for Paper Proposals is 10 October 2018. For more information please visit: http://www.bigtransformations.hfp.tum.de/

In December, the Solikris researchers met on invitation of the BMBF in Bonn with a number of other projects from the funding guideline. The aim of the meeting, besides mutual introduction, was to kick-start considerations concerning networking and knowledge transfer. In this regard, four workshops were organized in which the possibilities of knowledge transfer through events, through the web and social media, through networking in general and through linking young scientific professionals were discussed. The results of the discussions will be used by the BMBF to sound out the needs of the researchers concerning those topics and to plan concrete support measures.

On June 29th 2018 a symposium on democratic attitudes in uncertain times (Demokratienähe und -distanz im Zeitalter der Verunsicherung) was held in Berlin-Marzahn. The event was organized by the project ‘Democracy distant attitudes in a local community as a challenge for socio-spatial democracy development’ based at ASH Berlin, which is also part of the funding line. Heiko Giebler introduced and represented Solikris at the symposium. The goal was to not only exchange ideas with political practitioners but also provide networking opportunities among the projects of the funding line. In addition to Solikris and the ASH-based project, representatives of ‚Populismus, Demokratie, Stadt‘ [‘Populism, Democracy, City’] and ‘Das Soziale-Orte-Konzept’ [‘Social Spaces Concept’] attended the event.

On the 27th and 28th of February, the researchers of the Solikris Project met for the project's Kick-Off Meeting at the Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences (GESIS) in Cologne. The two-days workshop focused on the coordination of the working packages and on the development of common guidlines and aims. The delegation will meet again in Berlin in autumn 2018.