Description

The Research Training Group examines and compares governance modes and performance profiles of autocratic and democratic regimes. The six dissertation projects cover three new and largely understudied fields of comparative political regime research:

Firstly, the comparison of democratic and autocratic regimes alongside the analytical axis regime type – governance modes - performance. Secondly, the comparison of democratic and autocratic regimes in order to identify and explain issue-specific similarities and dissimilarities in performance. And thirdly, the systematic comparison of domestic and foreign policy of the respective regime types with regard to the use of specific governance arrangements and performance in order to establish a stable national as well as international order.

Do democratic and autocratic states diverge or converge in their governance modes and therefore in their performance profiles? How can empirical results be explained theoretically? How are policy performance and practices of political legitimation connected? The projects focus on a diachronic or synchronic comparative analysis since the beginning of the 1990s. Since then, many diverse risks have been identified when producing public goods in selected policy or regulatory areas within and outside the nation state (for example, the demographic change).  

Together as well as individually, the projects investigate the connection between regime types, their choice of governance approach and performance from different perspectives (comparison of political systems, political theory and policy analysis).

The intertwining concept of the research training group together with a detailed description of the thematic orientation and the individual project fields can be found here.