B European Political Systems and their Integration
The development of democracy in Europe is at the core of research in Department B. Coherence of the research activities in Department B results from the common interest in European democratic governance and the emphasis on theory-guided comparative empirical research in this area.
The projects in the Department focus on the issue of democracy in Europe, with particular attention to the conditions and contextual factors of democratic governance. They do so from different perspectives, which organises the research in three areas. These three research areas investigate complementary and interrelated aspects of democratic politics in European countries and in the European multilevel system of governance. Projects in Research Area B1 deal with the conditions of democratic governance in terms of the behaviour and orientations of citizens; projects in Research Area B2 concentrate on the institutional contexts of democratic governance; projects in Research Area B3 focus on political behaviour and political decision-making in regions that are influenced by European states or the European Union. Several projects are part of international research networks and many aim to generate open data and open materials as public goods for the scientific community.