Research

The project "The shadow of democracy: Rising autocratisation in democracies" investigates how a country's experience with democracy influences processes of autocratisation. In political science, it has long been assumed that democracies stabilise and strengthen themselves after a certain period of time. However, recent developments, such as in Hungary, which has gone from being a model of democratisation to a prime example of autocratisation, call this assumption into question.

The project Rising autocratisation in democracies aims to explore the factors that influence the resilience of democracies to autocratisation and to understand what distinguishes democracies from other regimes. The main research question is how a country's political opportunity structures and democratic experiences influence potential autocratisation. Three specific research questions are addressed:

1. are democracies more resilient to autocratisation than other regimes?

2. how do the interactions between autocratic governments and their opponents differ in democratic and non-democratic regimes?

3. under what conditions can autocratisation be stopped in (formerly) democratic countries?

In order to answer these questions, a three-part research approach will be pursued, including statistical analyses, comparative case studies and systematic evaluations of autocratisation processes in specific countries. The project contributes to understanding how democracies can survive in times of autocratisation and which factors play a role in this.

Project management
Prof. Dr Theresa Gessler

Project team members:inside
Leander Kraft
Daniel Morgenstern

Funding
The project is funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation.

Funding period
11/2024 - 10/2026

For the 2024 local elections in Frankfurt (Oder), a team from the Junior Professorship of Comparative Politics and students from the "Electoral Research in the Super Election Year 2024" seminar created a digital voting aid for Frankfurt (Oder) in the summer semester of 2024.

Digital voting aids - such as the Wahl-O-Mat for the Bundestag elections - helped users to compare their own opinions with the positions of the parties and associations standing for election. To do this, they selected politically balanced, election-relevant theses in advance and contacted all the parties and lists running to obtain their positions.

The digital voting aid for the local elections is still available here: VOTO - Kommunalwahl Frankfurt (Oder) 2024. Use is free and anonymous.