The super election year has reached its climax with the Bundestag elections. Whether campaign strategies, the further development of our democracy, or the analysis of the election results and their implications: In the past weeks, our experts at Das Progressive Zentrum have commented on issues surrounding the elections in various media outlets. We present a selection.

Inequality is often misperceived in the German population. Using survey data, a new paper by the University of Konstanz in cooperation with Das Progressive Zentrum presents evidence for this claim. While inequality is indeed seen as a problem, its extent is underestimated in important aspects. Yet, large parts of the population support a more egalitarian society. This gives rise to the potential for a political agenda that strengthens progressive and egalitarian policies.

 
Maria Skóra, Head of Programme “International Dialogue” at Das Progressive Zentrum, has published an op-ed in the “International Politics and Society Journal” (IPS). She investigates the political impact of the COVID-19 crisis in Poland and unveils strategies of the governing PiS party in light of the upcoming presidential elections. 
 

Our head of the International Dialogue program Maria Skóra in the International Politics and Society journal about the cold relations between Germany, Poland and the EU.

For the first time, the German national daily “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” published an own ranking of the most influential female economists. Among the top seven are Maja Göpel and Anke Hassel, two women from our network.

On the day of the Polish parliamentary election in 2019, our Head of Programme International Relations talked on British television about the obvious success of the ruling PiS party – and the less obvious one of the Left.

While the European Parliament elections near, politics in Poland is at such a crux that the later parliamentary polls there will have wide reverberations.

Sophie Pornschlegel and Robert Schütte explain what the coalition dispute in Germany means on a national and European level in interviews with the BBC and the Spanish newspaper “La Razón.“ Johannes Hillje discusses political ‘framing’ in three major news outlets, pointing out the dangers of expressions like “transit centres” and “asylum tourism.” And Fedor Ruhose explains how established parties should compete against their right-wing populist contestants in this year’s regional elections in an op-ed in “Frankfurter Rundschau.”

Where there is language, there is usually also subtext – especially when it gets political. The concept of “framing” in political analysis describes how such subtext is created in political language in order to carry certain messages, thereby suggesting simple solutions by playing with the associations language evokes.

After the establishment of a new grand coalition on 14th of March 2018 in Germany, Fedor Ruhose, Policy Fellow at Das Progressive Zentrum, and DPZ-Director Dominic Schwickert analyse the current state of the centre-left parties, in particular the SPD. They point out upcoming challenges in the national and European context and set out five key challenges which German social democrats must overcome.

Explaining the struggle of fulfilling the role of an “intellectual cleaning lady” forced to respond to hate speech on the internet, Policy Fellow Kübra Gümüşay sets out her vision of taking back control of the internet through organising love and understanding.

For Politico, Policy Fellow Fedor Ruhose comments on how to tackle provocations of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in the Bundestag (German parliament).

Only a few months ago the Myth Martin Schulz seemed to have pulled the Social Democratic Party out of their ongoing plight. A glance at the outcomes of the most recent state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia however, seem to indicate otherwise. Yet, how significant are the outcomes of the state elections for the future of the party on a national level? Or has the proclaimed “Schulz-Effekt” already worn off?

Expect German-American relations to cool over the coming months as September’s elections draw closer

Our Policy Fellow Laura-Kristine Krause and Florian Ranft, researcher at the London-based think tank Policy Network, published an analysis of the state of the German social democratic party. They argue that Sigmar Gabriel should brush off questions over his leadership and capitalise on party support for his centre-orientated reform strategy.