Members

Prof. Dr. Frank Asbrock

Professorship in Social Psychology, TU Chemnitz

Zentrum für kriminologische Forschung Sachen (ZKFS)

holds the professorship for Social Psychology at TU Chemnitz since September 2019 and is director of the Center for Criminological Research Saxony (Zentrum für kriminologische Forschung Sachsen, ZKFS) in Chemnitz since 2021. He studied Psychology in Bielefeld and received his doctoral degree there. In his research, he focuses on conflicts between groups, especially with the connections between categorial perception and discrimination. Further, he studies the perception of risk and security and their connections to ideological attitudes.

Selected Publications
(2023) with C. Pollmanns: Reclaim the streets: The link between positive and negative direct intergroup contact and movement support against immigration via threat perceptions. Journal of Applied SocialPsychology,1–15. https://doi.org/10.1111/jasp.12967
(2020) with M. Albrecht: „Die trägt ja als Deutsche ein Kopftuch“ – Der Einfluss autoritärer Einstellungen auf die Wahrnehmung der Verletzung kultureller Normen. Zeitschrift für Religion Gesellschaft und Politik, 4(1), 105-126. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41682-020-00059-5
(2021) with J. Schulze Wessel, C. Neubauer, S. Rindermann, N. Zill, B. Haj Bakri, N. Haji Darwish & T. Heyne: Machtvolle Gestalterinnen: Syrische Frauen über Demokratie in Familie, Gesellschaft und Staat. In S. Kailitz, G. Pickel, & T. Genswein (Eds.), Sachsen zwischen Integration und Desintegration: Politisch-kulturelle Heimaten (pp. 55–77). Springer Fachmedien. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-32704-0_4

PD Dr. Steffen Kailitz

Hannah Arendt Institute for the Research on Totalitarianism, Dresden

focuses on right-wing extremism, xenophobia, and political culture in Germany and has written extensively on these issues. He cofounded the Working Group for Comparative Dictatorship and Extremism Research at the German Political Science Association (DVPW) and was its spokesman between 2003 and 2012. Kailitz was also one of the four expert witnesses appointed by the Federal Constitutional Court in the NPD ban proceedings 2013–2017.

Selected Publications
(2019) Im Namen des Volkes. Warum AfD-Spitzenpolitiker wie die Nationalsozialisten reden – und was Demokraten dagegen unternehmen können, in: Spiegel from 21.12.2019
(2020) Sachsen – eine Hochburg des Rechtsextremismus? (ed. with Uwe Backes) Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Prof. Dr. Antje Röder

Professorship in Methods of Empirical Social Research, Marburg University

researches on integration of migrants and minorities in European societies, with particular interest in the interplay of individual factors on the one hand and group- and country-specific contexts on the other. She has published extensively on socio-cultural integration of migrants, specifically on attitudes regarding gender roles and homosexuality and the effects of discrimination. International comparisons based on secondary data sets and data collection among mobile and hard-to-reach populations are at the center of her research.

Selected Publications

(2022) Röder, A. and Spierings, N.: What shapes attitudes toward homosexuality among European Muslims? The role of religiosity and destination hostility’, International Migration Review 56(2), 533-561.
(2018) Röder, A., Kailitz, S., Genswein, T., Rindermann, S., Schulze Wessel, J., Pickel, G., Decker, O., und Hohenberger, L.: „Methodische Herausforderungen quantitativer Befragungen von Geflüchteten am Beispiel einer Vorstudie in Sachsen“, Z’Flucht: Zeitschrift für Flucht- und Flüchtlingsforschung 2(2), 313-329.

PD Dr. Oliver Decker

Center for the Study of Right-Wing Extremism and Democracy, Leipzig University

researches on the effects of social crises and transformations on society members using qualitative and quantitative methods of empirical social research. One of his focus areas are “Mitte” surveys – carried out at Leipzig University since 2002 – which explore political attitudes in Germany. He is the spokesman of the Center for the Study of Right-Wing Extremism and Democracy (KReDo).

Selected Publications

(2016) Comparative Perspectives on Right-Wing Extremism in Europe. New York: Routledge (with J. Kiess/E. Brähler, eds).
(2016) Extremismus in Sachsen. Ansätze. Befunde. Beispiele. Leipzig: Seemann Henschel (with G. Pickel).

Prof. Dr. Alexander Gallus

Professorship Political Theory and the History of Ideas, TU Chemnitz

is a political scientist and historian working in the field of contemporary history and researching primarily on the questions of political thinking and intellectuals in the 20th century. He is deeply interested in the perception of cesura and intellectual processing of personal turning points in the repeatedly exploding realms of experience during “The Age of Extremes” (Eric Hobsbawm). Prof. Gallus has also dealt with outlier and the third way positions as well as challenges of exile and transnational linkages. Recently his publication “Meinhof, Mahler, Ensslin. Die Akten der Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes” has received wide public attention.

Selected Publications

(2016) Politikwissenschaftliche Passagen. Deutsche Streifzüge zur Erkundung eines Faches. Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag (ed.).
(2015) Zur Historisierung und Aktualität des 20. Jahrhunderts. Signaturen quer zu den großen politischen Ordnungssystemen und Narrativen, Jahrbuch Extremismus und Demokratie 27, 13-32.

Prof. Dr. Tom Mannewitz

Professorship for political extremism and political history of thought, Federal University of Applied Administrative Sciences (ZNAF) Berlin

focuses in his – primarily comparative – research on political extremism and democracy, political culture in Germany, as well as the methods of political science (including macro-qualitative methods, concept and indicator research). In 2014, he was habilitated with a work on the reconceptualisation and regionalisation of political culture in Germany and, after holding the Junior Professorship in Research Methods of Political Science at TU Chemnitz for six years, he is now Professor for Political Extremism and Political History of Thought at the Federal University of Applied Administrative Sciences (Centre for Basic and Advanced Training in the Intelligence Services) in Berlin.

Selected Publications

(2020) with Tom Thieme: Gegen das System. Linker Extremismus in Deutschland, Bonn: bpb.
(2018) with Herman Ruch/Tom Thieme/Thorsten Winkelmann: Was ist politischer Extremismus? Grundlagen, Erscheinungsformen, Interventionsansätze, Frankfurt am Main: Wochenschau Verlag.

Prof. Dr. Tom Thieme

Professorship social policy education, College of the Saxonian Police (FH)

is since 2017 professor for social policy education at the College of the Saxonian Police (FH). He studied political science, sociology and geography at Technical University Chemnitz, did a doctorate in 2007 about extreme political parties in Eastern Europe, qualified as a university lecturer in 2013 by a comparative work on system changes in 1989/90. His reseach focus lies in the area of democracy, dictatorship and extremism.

Selected Publications

(2022) Rechts- und Linksextremismus in den deutschen Bundesländern, Baden-Baden: Nomos (with Reinhold Melcher)
(2018) Was ist politischer Extremismus? Grundlagen, Erscheinungsformen, Interventionsansätze, Frankfurt a. M. : Wochenschau-Verlag (with Tom Mannewitz, Hermann Ruch and Thorsten Winkelmann)