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The world has faced major global crises during the last years: the financial and the climate crises, the Covid-19 pandemic and most recently the war on Ukraine. These situations are often understood as a natural “hour of the executive”, and this created new challenges for parliaments. The goal of the workshop in Taipeh, Taiwan, is to understand how parliaments can respond to crises, uphold their influence, and how this can support public understanding and institutional trust.

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A new chapter in German history begins with the country’s first three-party coalition government since the 1950s, the ‘Ampel’ coalition, emerging from the 2021 elections. The seminar, sponsored by the AICGS and the IParl, will focus on the challenges ahead, using the new coalition as departure point for considering current developments as well as the long-term evolution of German political institutions and political culture. Please submit your proposals until March 14, 2022.

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Benjamin Höhne writes about the fundamental processes of candidate selection in Germany, the role of the parties and future challenges in his contribution to the edited volume by Thibault Muzergues and Dan Scadutoder. The publication of the International Republican Institute (IRI) brings together ten case studies on the selection of parliamentary candidates. The volume is freely available on the IRI site.

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The .think atlantic podcast is produced by the International Republican Institute (IRI) and is dedicated to a biweekly topic with transatlantic relevance, examined from different, international perspectives. In this episode, Benjamin Höhne talks to host Breanna Kerr about the candidate selection process in Germany. In addition, other guests report on the selection of parliamentary candidates in Greece, France and the USA.

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What spurs or hampers contested district nominations for the Bundestag? Our new article provides some answers: Determinants for competitive conferences are a vacant candidacy, extra-parliamentary parties, and the involvement of several regional party units. Interestingly, there is a vast demand for more contested nominations among the selectorates. However, some ‘coronations’ are caused by early withdrawals of aspirants due to the leadership’s influence.

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In "Government & Opposition", Benjamin Höhne analyses the AfD's intra-party democracy (IPD). On a broad empirical basis of the #BuKa2017 project as well as self-developed measurement methods, he shows that the AfD has a "competitive IPD". This is significantly more pronounced than in the other six parties in the Bundestag, even compared to the participation-oriented Greens.

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The left-wing movement "Aufstehen" was a political experiment that received a lot of media attention in a relatively short period of time. In his article, Benjamin Höhne traces the development of the self-proclaimed movement, places it in the German party landscape and draws conclusions from its rapid failure for new "movement parties" in Germany.

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The 26th IPSA World Congress of Political Science was supposed to take place in Lisbon last year. Like many other scientific meetings and congresses, it was cancelled due to the COVID19 pandemic. It will now be held virtually from 10 to 15 July 2021. We are actively participating in this global meeting in a fourfold manner.

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Digital, interdisciplinary and exciting. The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) hosted an inspiring symposium on the political work of the SPD’s parliamentary group in the German Bundestag. We participated with initial findings from our SOPiP-Project on the development of standing orders of parliamentary groups.

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Benjamin Höhne and Uwe Jun analyse the FDP's initial position before the 2021 federal elections. After the failed exploratory talks, voter support has declined; the coalition policy options have not yet been convincingly expanded. Is there a threat of a new impasse?