Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD)
The Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD) brings together the research activities of the members of the Institute for Political Science (IPW) under one roof. The Center is primarily concerned with the analysis of democratic orders and processes. The research activities can be divided into three core areas:
- The institutional, ideational and material foundations of democratic orders;
- The drivers of political change in these orders;
- And the impact of democratic policymaking on society, economy and the environment.
The Centre is also actively involved in promoting young scientists and fosters the international and regional networking of research institutions devoted to the study of democracy.
The activities of the CSD include:
- Implementing research projects on the three core topics: foundations, transformation, and impact of democracy
- Organization of international conferences and workshops on current issues of democracy research
- Collection and coordination of international data sets, especially the World Values Survey, the Comparative Political Data Set, and the database on Central and Eastern European Political Systems and Governments
- Promotion of research in the form of doctoral and post-doctoral scholarships at the Center
- Hosting regular guest lectures by internationally renowned scientists and early career researchers
- Active scientific promotion of young talent in the form of regular doctoral seminars on theories and methods of democracy research as well as in the form of summer schools for doctorate students and inter-university graduate networks
- Establishing contacts between science and practice
On the establishment of the CSD:
The interdisciplinary Centre for the Study of Democracy was founded on 2 June 2004 on the recommendation of the Scientific Commission of Lower Saxony under the chairmanship of Professor Dr. Hans Dieter Klingemann. Founding Director and Head of the CSD from 2004 to 2018 was Professor Dr. Ferdinand Müller-Rommel.
Every semester ZDEMO/IPW organize a weekly research colloquium - the so called "Tuesday Seminar." It serves as a forum for ZDEMO members and invited external guests to present their ongoing research and book projects as well as discuss burning questions of research and methods in a critical but fair atmosphere among colleagues.
The Tuesday Seminar is open for all interested students of political science and related fields and takes place every Tuesday from 16:00 -18:00. You will find the current dates in our calendar. You are most welcome to join!
The archive can be found here
From 2016-2020 twelve outstanding doctoral students at Leuphana University Lüneburg had been funded with " Georg-Christoph-Lichtenberg-Stipendien" from the state of Lower Saxony. The scholarships, worth three-quarters of a million euros, were awarded as part of the "Democracy under Stress" doctoral programme.
The young scientists researched current "stress factors" for democracy. The focus was on the question of how the new political, economic, ecological and cultural challenges facing modern democracies are perceived, dealt with and overcome. It also examined how dealing with the problems affects the durability of democracy. The work has focused on the three research areas of participation, representation, and inclusion, thus capturing the core functions of democracy.
