Projects from Seventh Research Programme (2008-2011)

RP7 A European Societies and their Integration

The projects in Department A study the cultural, social, economic and welfare-state-based foundations of living conditions in Europe, their change and their variation in different European societies.

The three Research Areas focus on labour relations and welfare state regimes (A1),on processes of social stratification in the labour markets and educational systems (A2), and on population-related processes, in particular changing family structures, migration, and ethnic differentiation (A3). Obviously, many overlapping and mutually stimulating research interests exist between the three categorizing areas. A common denominator of most projects is that they are specifically interested in the mechanisms underlying structural trends or cross-coun­try variations and compile or collect new elaborate large-scale data sets to give more appropriate answers on their empirical relevance. Many projects are embedded into wider national or international research initiatives.
RP7 B European Political Systems and their Integration

In various ways, the projects of Department B seek to contribute to the understanding of democratic politics and its development in Europe. The focus is both on comparative research investigating different aspects of the national political systems in Europe and their change in the course of European integration and on the emergent system of EU governance and conflict regulation and its relationships to national politics.

The three Research Areas focus on complementary, but also interrelated aspects of democratic politics in the European multi-level system of governance: the involvement and participation of citizens in democratic decision-making and their attitudes towards polities, policies and politics (B1), the roles of political parties and their candidates as well as parliaments and legislators for democratic governance, with a special emphasis on electoral competition and political representation (B2), and the mutual dependencies and influences between the various layers of multi-level politics with regard to substantial and institutional policies, but also interest intermediation and elections (B3). Numerous projects are densely tied into international research networks, some of them assuming leading roles. Several projects also aim at the by-product of providing scholars with innovative data sets as a collective good.