WZB - Berlin Social Science Center

The WZB

The WZB Berlin Social Science Center investigates fundamental societal issues. Our focus is on education and work, markets and choice, migration, democracy and autocracy, international politics and law. At the WZB researchers from various disciplines work together – mainly from sociology, political science, economics, law and psychology.

Working at the WZB

The WZB offers a modern working environment, where both equal opportunities and the compatibility of work and family are highly valued. Find out more about it here.

WZB-Mitteilungen

Bodies

When it comes to bodies, we negotiate nothing less than the relationship of the individual to the world. The topic of the December issue of WZB-Mitteilungen, “body”, is therefore highly relevant for the social sciences. How are bodies determined and evaluated by norms? Which conditions affect people's health and integrity and how? What power do bodies have?

The issue explores these questions. It collects contributions from the fields of mobility and health research, reproductive policy, protection against violence and gender relations in science and art, it examines the relationship between the body and power, both historically and currently.

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The Hierarchies of Fashion

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Alexander D. Hoppe
Astrid Dünkelmann

Fashion and sociology are the topics of Alexander Hoppe, Kohli Fellow and Guest Researcher at the WZB. In his current book project, “Routinizing Creativity”, he shows where fashion comes from and how anticipation shapes the labor process. In an interview with Kerstin Schneider, he talks about his research on work, aesthetics, and attention.

Body and protest

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Dieter Rucht und Gabriele Kammerer
WZB

Mass gatherings, hunger strikes, glue activists – when people want to demonstrate against existing conditions or for their demands, they do so most effectively by using their bodies. Protest researcher Dieter Rucht explores the relationship between physical presence and political concerns in conversation with Gabriele Kammerer.

Call for Papers: "The Future of Democracy?"

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Konferenz Future of Democracy
Nadim Bazze

The WZB is dedicating its first annual interdisciplinary conference from 9 to 10 October 2025 to “The Future of Democracy?”. We invite submissions that analyze the obstacles facing liberal democracies and explore potential solutions for safeguarding and strengthening democratic institutions. Our aim is to create a forum for interdisciplinary discussions. Submission deadline: 30 April 2025

A New Dataset of Legislative Documents

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'RePowerEU' banner on the front of the Berlaymont building
European Union, 2022/ Bogdan Hoyaux

An innovative new dataset has been released: ParlLawSpeech (PLS) offers machine-readable full texts of legislative documents from eight European parliaments, including 43,582 bills, 28,124 laws, and 3,092,431 plenary speeches. The three document types are linked by a common identifier, allowing researchers to analyze the entire lawmaking process. ParlLawSpeech has been created by a team including WZB researcher Christian Rauh, under the auspices of the OPTED Horizon 2020 project and supported by the WZB, GESIS and poltextLAB.

Perception of Security Influences Elections

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Porträt Jehun Alizade
Sameer Khan

When talking about migration, many citizens invoke the terms security and crime – often associated with fears and the suggestion that the increasing number of migrants is exacerbating crime. How does this perception influence voting preferences? What differences are there between voters and parties on the right, conservative and left of the political spectrum? A recent study by WZB researcher Jeyhun Alizade illustrates how strongly issues such as security and migration shape different political camps.