B European Political Systems and their Integration
The study of democracy in Europe is at the core of the research conducted in Department B. The coherence of the Department’s research activities is rooted in a common interest in European democratic governance and the emphasis on theory-driven, comparative empirical research in this area.
The projects in the Department focus on the issue of democracy in Europe, with a particular focus on the conditions and contextual factors of democratic governance. These projects approach the subject from different perspectives, which organises the research in three areas. Together, 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 investigate the conditions of democratic governance in terms of the behaviour and orientations of citizens; projects in Research Area B2 focus on the institutional contexts of democratic governance; projects in Research Area B3 explore political behaviour and political decision-making in regions impacted 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.