Doctoral Research Group Political Science

This doctoral research group analyses political and social challenges to democracy and processes of change in the development of civil society in the 21st century. Three strands of research are pursued. They concentrate on the legitimization and the performance of democracies:

• How are 'emancipatory cultures' promoted in which freedom of choice and equal opportunities are respected?
• How do 'emancipatory cultures' change civil society?
• How does the process of human empowerment influence the development of democracy?

• What is the impact of formal and informal institutional patterns on the performance of party government?
• In how far does the 'personalization of politics' determine change in the democratic structures of liberal societies?
• What are the social and political conditions for institutional reform in 'old' and 'new' democracies?
• What is the role and function of political leadership in representative democracy?

• Which old and new forms of democratic representation, participation and deliberation exist within and beyond the nation state?
• How do political actors formulate and pursue political strategies in democratic societies?
• What possibilities and limits of participatory and deliberative approaches of democratic problem solving and conflict resolution exist in differentiated policy fields and how can they be analyzed and evaluated?

Depending on the subject and method of the dissertation, the respective faculty confers the following doctoral degrees:

• Dr. rer. pol.
• Dr. phil.

As a doctoral candidate at Leuphana, you not only write your dissertation, but also participate in the interdisciplinary doctoral courses to the extent of 30 credit points, which include (inter)disciplinary colloquia (Research Forum I and Research Forum II) and furthermore comprises four interdisciplinary modules on research ethics, research methods, scientific practice and current perspectives on science. Please find more information about Leuphana's doctoral courses here.

If you wish to pursue your doctorate at Leuphana, you must be enrolled as doctoral student. Information about admission to the doctorate at Leuphana and the application procedure can be found here.

Leuphana Graduate School offers advice and coaching to academics in the qualification phase. The Graduate School's advisor will be happy to support you in questions of decision-making, challenges in the course of your doctorate, and career planning and development. You can find more information about the counselling and coaching services here.

Leuphana University Lüneburg awards the Leuphana Dissertation Award to Maria Kravtsova for her dissertation entitled ‘Cultural, Historical and Geo-Climatic Background of Socio-Economic Progress (with Focus on Family Structure and Corruption)’.

Maria Kravtsova's dissertation examines the development of societies in relation to historical ‘extended’ and ‘nuclear’ family structures. In doing so, the author provides a remarkable synthesis of interdisciplinary literature, specifically identifies gaps in research and conducts extensive data collection on the defined desiderata. Based on complex analyses, the dissertation shows that the historical patterns of family structures reveal clearly identifiable geoclimatic and agrarian historical determinants and permanently visible consequences such as corruption, voting behaviour and value orientations.

What motivated you to pursue a doctorate and why did you choose Leuphana?

I have been working at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow when Prof. Christian Welzel joint our lab as a scientific adviser. I was really fascinated by his work and especially by his lecture where he stated that the preindustrial family structure had a downstream effect on the current day values, institutions and prosperity. This idea looked like a magic and it was worth to test. I decided to do so as a PhD student at the Leuphana University under the supervision by Prof. Welzel.

What special memories do you associate with your doctoral studies?

I entered the PhD program when my younger son was only one year old. I was collecting the dataset on family structure based on historical censuses while my son was sleeping. I was afraid to make any noise otherwise he could wake up and I would not be able to work anymore. I remember as well that I have discussed my results with Chris in many nice cafes with tasty food in Lueneburg and in Moscow.   

What challenges did you face during your doctorate and how did you deal with them?

My dissertation was paper based and I had to provide one published paper and one “revise and resubmit” paper. I submitted all my papers and hoped to defend my thesis soon. But I got three rejects on my papers in one day. I had tears in my eyes and I called my friend who is professor at the Free University of Berlin. He read me aloud the list of his own papers with the number of times they were rejected and the names of journals where they were finally published. It was very encouraging. 

What advice or tips would you give to new doctoral students?

If you would like to write a good quality dissertation stick to those ideas that you are really interested in and not to those that seem to be quickly realizable. Don’t be upset if you can’t get your paper published and therefore you can’t defend your thesis. Tell your friends or relatives everything you think about your reviewers, make a deep breath and rewrite your paper.