Political Science

Research at the Department of Political Science is structured around four cross-cutting areas which we see as central to an analysis of European Union politics:

1. European institutional politics (Pollak, Auel, Sigalas)


2. Politics of representation (Caiani, Pollak, Tiemann)

Standard theories of democratic political representation focus on the role of regular territorially based elections, which provide a mechanism for citizens to select their officials and entrust them with the running of public affairs, of electoral behaviour and party strategy in elections to the European Parliament and evaluate the quality of democratic representation within the European Union. However, our research also goes beyond the electoral channel: Classical theories which have once been developed for the analysis of national politics do however often neglect the socio-political change which is taking place in the course of and is strengthened by European integration, e.g. the influence of transnational actors, the importance of transnational decision-making arenas, the role of civil society, and the rise of informal structures. These changes suggest a reconfiguration of the relationship between territory, function and identity as the main vectors of democratic policy-making. How has the European integration process impacted on electoral and territorial links? Furthermore, how does the development of non-formal representation modes, which are typical for non-hierarchical systems, change policy-making? Does the emergence of new social actors increase responsiveness?

3. Electoral connection (Sigalas)

Re-election is the proximate goal of all elected and career politicians, according to David Mayhew’s electoral connection theory. It is a prerequisite not only for advancing one’s political career, but also for maintaining one’s capacity of influencing political decision-making in the future. The goal of re-election, therefore, links politicians with their parties and the electorate and is a fundamental feature of democratic politics.

Our research examines theoretically and empirically whether an electoral connection between represented and representatives exist at the level of the European Union. We investigate whether the European Parliament elections offer a connection between citizens and MEPs or if they are inconsequential, as conventional wisdom holds. In particular, we look at what MEPs do in Strasbourg and in Brussels and whether this affects their chances of getting re-nominated by their parties and re-elected by the electorate.

Some of the questions we seek to answer are:

(1) Do MEPs use EP instruments for the purposes of self-advertising, credit-claiming and position-taking?
(2) Are parliamentary questions and speeches a means to offer services to the national party?
(3) Are MEPs who are active in the EP more likely to get re-elected?

4. Conceptual change through integration (Pollak)

Core political science concepts like sovereignty, accountability and representation, to name but a few, have for a long time not moved very far beyond the eighteenth-century formulations developed during the rise of the nation-state. For the better part of the 20th century, the theoretical debate about those concepts seems to have been characterised by the ‘spicing up’ of a (allegedly clear) core concept with a splendid wealth of adjectives. While there is no doubt that the different conceptualisations have added to our knowledge, they can no longer explain the changed world around us. What are the conceptual changes and how can we understand them?

• promoting academic excellence in research on Europe and the European Union,
• fostering cross-disciplinary collaboration in European integration research;
• maintaining high standards of teaching within the department’s PhD program, and
• providing a leading forum for debate by convening lectures, workshops, and conferences.