I have recently been invited to comment on two significant public discussions: analysing Friedrich Merz’s election as German Chancellor on the public broadcast BR24 radio, and participating in a panel discussion on European solidarity at the documentary film festival DOK.fest München. Both engagements allowed me to connect academic insights from…
Continue ReadingCategory: Media
Live on German Tagesschau and other ARD channels following the German general elections 2025: A discussion on the AfD’s election success, coalition politics, and democratic principles
On Monday, 24 February 2025, I had the opportunity to discuss the recent German general elections on a live radio show, streamed on YouTube and broadcasted across several channels of the German ARD group. Alongside a representative from the IGM trade union and the moderator, I explored key topics surrounding…
Continue ReadingMedia interviews on the 2024 European elections
The 2024 European elections were covered by a wide range of media across the globe. Both in the wake and aftermath of the elections, I was contacted by various media to comment on actors and factors shaping the elections, unprecedented institutional and electoral dynamics, new parties competing for votes, and…
Continue ReadingMeeting the European Health Risk Union with a European Health Rights Union
In the context of this year’s European Health Forum Gastein (EHFG), I was asked to comment on the question: Why do we need a true European Health Union? In a nutshell, I argue in my response that we are currently living in a European Health Risk Union where risks both…
Continue ReadingThe unreliability of compassion, and the European Parliament’s history of self-empowerment: Two columns at “Ideas on Europe”
Since October 2021, UACES and Euradio are together hosting a new editorial in which scholars from the broad area of European studies address and discuss current issues as well as long-term developments in and across Europe, its political, cultural, societal and economic landscapes. Given the chance to present some of…
Continue ReadingNew indices, new indicators, more data: New V-Dem dataset is out
The new dataset of the global data collection project ‘Varieties of Democracy’ (V-Dem) is out and can be downloaded free of charge here (SPSS, STATA, CSV, R): https://www.v-dem.net/en/data/data-version-9/. The V-Dem data is used by scholars, journalists and policy makers around the world in order to understand current and past developments…
Continue ReadingNew V-Dem dataset is out: data on democratic development of more than 200 countries from 1789 to 2017
The global data collection project ‘Varieties of Democracy’ (V-Dem) has published a huge new dataset with data on the development of democracy in more than 200 countries worldwide, covering for the first time a period of over 200 years (1789-2017). This is also the first dataset to which I contributed…
Continue Reading