Since 2016, those affiliated with Social Science Works have published a large number of articles and reports. Long and short articles, detached or polemical, very thorough or more associative, but always written in a way that can be understood by a wider audience. Some articles have appeared only in English, or only in German, some in both languages. The German articles can be found on the German pages of this website. The topics cover the themes central to Social Science Works’ activities: democracy, deliberation, populism, social cohesion, migration and integration, social criticism, science criticism and Usable Knowledge. To make the articles easier to find, they have been divided into categories. However, to make sure you don’t miss anything, below you will find all articles published since 2016 in chronological order.

Since the categories naturally overlap, some articles can be found in multiple places. The following categories have been created.

  • Democratic Theory: empirically based theoretical articles on democracy, deliberation, pluralism, radicalization, extremism.
  • Project and Research Reports: articles about the projects and research we have carried out. Each project always has a research component as well, and also aims to generate general insights into the theme in question. Articles on all other themes can therefore also be found here.
  • Articles on populism: the overlap with democratic theory, among others, is obvious. Nevertheless, a separate category has been created because the articles in question explicitly address the populist movements that can be observed over the past decade in almost the entire Western world.
  • Science Criticism: articles that critically examine existing practices in academia and science.
  • Social Criticism: explicitly socially critical articles, a category with considerable overlap with populism.
  • Refugees and integration: articles that are often unrelated to the projects we have implemented in this field.
  • Urban Sociology and Tourism: integration, social cohesion and development, as well as socially and ethically responsible tourism are close to our hearts.
  • Finally, in order not to miss a single article by your favorite author, the articles are also listed by author.

All English Blog articles in chronological order

How To Debate Values In A Diverse Europe

We need to talk. We need to talk about fundamental concepts like democracy, ethical and political pluralism, tolerance, equality and freedom, concepts that many consider as constitutive for the European identity. We need to talk...

How The EU Referendum Campaign Poisoned The UK’s Political Discourse

The message on my phone said: “I’m so, so sorry”. That’s how I learnt that the UK had voted to leave the European Union. This is something I had feared from the moment the UK...

How Postmodernism Advanced Populism: An Inside Story From The Netherlands

There are many factors that explain the upheaval of populism. Postmodernism is one of them. In the Netherlands, certainly the columnist represented and helped to shape the postmodernist mood, a mood characterized by skepticism, subjectivism...

How NYE Turned German Political Debate Upside Down

At Social Science Works we seek to engage with contemporary political debate and offer solutions to its most pressing problems by applying social scientific thought. In this blog, co-founder Sarah Coughlan and Niklas Kossow explore...

Giving a face to refugees: A story from Thessaloniki

According to European Commission statistics, more than two million people risked their lives since 2015 to reach Europe in search of safety from poverty and war. Most of the refugees came from different parts of...

German bureaucracy in the integration of newcomers and how it can be reduced.

By international standards, Germany is a highly bureaucratized country. Even German-speaking natives regularly get lost in a forest of laws, regulations, and responsible administrative bodies. German civil servants are also known to be prone to...

For My Next Trick I Shall Eliminate Child Poverty

The intersection between social science and real life can often seem – even for those on the inside – vague, abstract and frankly unlikely a lot of the time. That is until a government starts...

Exploring the many Facets of Failure in Academia

Most of the people working in academia who watched The Chair, which aired this summer, were probably filled with a bittersweet feeling; indeed, Netflix’s comedy-drama depicted quite vividly American academic life, with its downsides and...

Equipping Civil Society for a Data-Driven Future

Civil society organisations in Germany need to be directly empowered to use data, in order to maintain their scope for action in a digitalised world. The rise of data-driven decision-making has made huge impact on...

Emotions and Political Deliberation

Reading the title of this article might evoke pictures of people violently shouting at each other or bursting out into tears while pleading their cause in front of an audience. Whereas the first case will...

Economists Looking For God

A science is not called a discipline by coincidence: its students are actively and deliberately disciplined to think and behave in the specific ways that define a discipline. They are trained to observe reality in...

Does the support of democratic values lead to higher degrees of individual social tolerance? A case study from Germany

In an increasingly interconnected world in which national borders are losing significance, promoting social tolerance is critical. Unfortunately, maintaining harmony and peace in emerging multicultural societies has proven challenging. This article shows the effects of...