Will democracy be voted out? Dataset premiere and discussion on 'Varieties of Political Regimes'

Date & Time: Tuesday, March 26, 2024, 18:30 - 20:00
Location: Sächsische Landesbibliothek – Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, Zellescher Weg 18, Dresden
Organized by: SLUB Events in cooperation with the Hannah Arendt Institute for Totalitarianism Studies at the Technical University of Dresden (HAIT)
Live Stream: The event will be streamed on YouTube

Join us for an engaging evening with political scientists Steffen Kailitz and Wolfgang Merkel, moderated by Manès Weisskircher. This event will showcase the "Varieties of Political Regimes (Va-PoReg)" dataset and its website, focusing on the critical discussion of the world's re-autocratization.

The backdrop to this conversation is the significant fact that in 2024, nearly half of the world's population, approximately four billion people, will participate in elections across various nations, from the USA to Brazil and India to Saxony. This event provides an invaluable opportunity to delve into Va-PoReg as a research tool, offering insights into the complex historical patterns of global political development from 1900 to the present.

Steffen Kailitz, leading the Va-PoReg team at HAIT, has contributed significantly to the field of political science, including serving as the spokesperson for the Comparative Politics section of the German Association for Political Science and founding the Comparative Autocracy and Extremism Research Working Group within the DVPW.

Wolfgang Merkel, a prominent figure in Comparative Political Science, directed the "Democracy and Democratization" Department at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center. His latest publication, "Im Zwielicht. Zerbrechlichkeit und Resilienz der Demokratie im 21. Jahrhundert," reflects his deep engagement with democracy's challenges post-1989.

Manès Weisskircher leads the BMBF Junior Research Group REXKLIMA (Right-wing Extremism versus Climate Protection?) at TU Dresden. He is also an affiliated researcher at the University of Oslo's Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX) and a visiting scholar at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center's Center for Civil Society Research.