Research in the field of political philosophy, theory and history of ideas. Research focus, research interests & collaboration
In the field of political philosophy, theory and the history of ideas, we conduct basic research on concepts, classics and little-known authors as well as more application-oriented studies that contribute to clarifying the requirements, challenges and design options of liberal democracies.
Historically, our research interest has focussed on antiquity, modern times and modernity. Systematically, we focus on the history of ideas and theory of liberalism and democracy, on comparative democratic theory and on applied democratic theory (the challenge of democracy through emerging technologies). Our analyses of Plato, Hobbes, Tocqueville and Rawls, which we examine with both a systematic-hermeneutic as well as an updating-application-related interest, have played a special role to date.
Selected publications
In our systematic, basic and applied research, in our efforts to promote young academics, knowledge transfer and political education, we enjoy working together with colleagues in various disciplinary and interdisciplinary organisations and institutions in Germany and abroad.
These include, for example, the Akademie für Politische Bildung Tutzing, the American Philosophical Association, the American Political Science Association, the Bayerische Promotionskolleg Politische Theorie, the Deutsche Vereinigung für Politische Wissenschaft, the Deutsche Gesellschaft zur Erforschung des Politischen Denkens, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Philosophie, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Politikwissenschaft, the European Consortium for Political Research, the European Hobbes Society, the Gesellschaft für Antike Philosophie, the International Hobbes Society, the theorieblog, and the Philosophie-Blog praefaktisch.
