Hannah Arendt Institute for the Research on Totalitarianism (HAIT) is affiliated to the Technical University of Dresden. Since 1993, it has concentrated on the comparative research of dictatorships. The focus of research is a systematic analysis of National Socialism and Communism. An essential part of the research work of the HAIT is the debate on current challenges and dangers for democracy, particularly autocratic and fundamentalist regimes, political extremism and xenohpobia, and racist and anti-semitist values.
IFRiS members at HAIT:
IFRiS members at TU Chemnitz:
Center for Integration Research
The term ‘integration’, which is controversially discussed in politics and economy, contains different, sometimes contradictory concepts of how society is and should be, who belongs to it, where its borders are, and how the connection between (cultural) belonging, individual performance and social participation can be defined.
The ZfI bundles and coordinates research activities in the mentioned subject field while taking into account the structures, practices, and discourses on in- and exclusion, as well as the effects on the socialisation resulting from these. Here, researchers from different disciplines joined in order to bundle research and teaching projects, as well as practice-oriented projects with transfer potential, and to design new projects.
IFRiS members at TU Dresden:
The Center for the Study of Right-Wing Extremism and Democracy
at the University of Leipzig wants to promote exchange between different faculties of the university. The goal is interdisciplinary pooling of the potentials in research and education. Both theory research and academic analysis of current and historical political developments are at the center of KReDO’s research. Currently researches from the Insitutes of Psychology, Sociology, and Political Science as well as Theological and Pedagogical Faculties take part in KReDO’s activities.
IFRiS members at Universität Leipzig:
Democracy Research in Saxony: The Else Frenkel-Brunswik Institute (EFBI), located at Leipzig University, researches and documents antidemocratic attitudes, structures, and aspirations in Saxony and, based on this research, advises actors within civil society and politics.
The Else Frenkel-Brunswik Institute was founded in the fall of 2020 to support democratically engaged civil society in Saxony. Democratic initiatives in Saxony have been facing a variety of problems, including insufficient funding as well as attacks and threats from the extreme right. At the same time, there remains a lack of common, up-to-date knowledge about the threat neo-Nazis, conspiracy ideologues, and antifeminists pose to democracy.
The goal of the work undertaken at EFBI is to counteract this situation by identifying gaps in knowledge about antidemocratic attitudes, structures, and aspirations in Saxony and by closing them through research. The knowledge gained in this process is specifically prepared and made available by the researchers to civil society groups.
The research undertaken at the institute focuses on various forms of discrimination as well as the strategies and dynamics of antidemocratic and authoritarian-motivated alliances. EFBI’s research fields include attitudinal research, research in conflict spaces, and the monitoring and documentation of antidemocratic structures and social media activities.
IFRiS members at EFBI: