What are the similarities between AfD voters and Green Party voters? Despite all political differences, they have one thing in common. There is a strong “affective polarization” in both groups. Those who vote for the Green Party, for example, view other Green Party voters in a particularly positive light and think less of AfD voters – and vice versa. In other words, while cohesion within the two groups is particularly high, this comes at the expense of cohesion with people who hold opposing political views. This is one of the results of the “German Social Cohesion Panel,” a representative survey of 12,000 people in Germany, which has been carried out annually since 2021 by the Research Institute for Social Cohesion (RISC).

The institute unites eleven universities and research institutions nationwide, with around 200 researchers from political science and sociology, with additional research areas including media and communication studies and history. The first phase went from 2020 to 2024, with the BMBF providing 40 million euros in funding. Up to ten million euros per year are now available in the second funding phase, which ends in 2029. This funding will support a variety of projects in four main areas: political, institutional, and civil conditions for cohesion; social and structural conditions for cohesion; public goods and infrastructures for cohesion; and media and cultural conditions for cohesion. Examples of research topics in this project include the health care of marginalized persons or polarization dynamics in social media. The University of Bremen is responsible for the aforementioned central panel survey on social cohesion. It is also the location of RISC’s research data center. RISC’s main office is located at Goethe University Frankfurt.

Eleven Institutions, One Institute – An Unusual Organization

An institute with so many participating research institutions is rather unusual in Germany. “Like many other research institutions, we submitted an application in response to a BMBF call for proposals in 2017,” says Sebastian Haunss, professor of political science at SOCIUM – Research Center Inequality and Social Policy. “In the end, however, not a single university was awarded the contract; instead, a nationwide network was founded.” For the researchers, this meant that they were tasked with setting up an organizational structure as well as with getting to know the other locations with a similar scientific focus. They were then able to develop joint research projects.

In Bremen, 33 researchers work for the institute, from SOCIUM – Research Center on Inequality and Social Policy, the Center of Labor and Politics (zap), and the Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research (ZeMKI). In addition to the BMBF funding, they also receive funding from Bremen State. The spokesperson for the Bremen location is Sebastian Haunss. The Bremen professor of sociology, Olaf Groh-Samberg, heads the entire institute as director.

Mapping Protests in Germany

The University of Bremen plays a leading role in many areas of the institute’s work, such as the German Social Cohesion Panel mentioned earlier. The researchers in Bremen are currently working on six additional work packages. For example, Sebastian Haunss and researchers from Bielefeld University are collecting extensive data on European protest culture. “Until the 1960s, protests were often equated with riots or violent demonstrations,” he says. Since then, perceptions have become more nuanced. Many researchers, including Haunss, now see protest as a sign of democracy in action. Nevertheless, data is still lacking to investigate protests in more detail. “Until now, research has focused on large protests at the national level,” explains Haunss. Actions at the local level were often ignored. In order to take these into consideration, the project team evaluated the reporting in local daily newspapers on not just demonstrations, but also on blockades, open letters, or other forms of protest for the period between 2000 and 2020. The researchers made their results available to the public at protestdata.eu. Here you will find data from 16 German cities – from Bremen and Leipzig to Husum or Düren.

Beyond TikTok and Instagram: Cohesion in Digital Spaces

In the second project phase, Haunss and his team want to internationalize their approach. In addition to the developments in Germany, they have begun to analyze protests in Italy and Hungary. They are comparing the reactions to developments and crises such as the coronavirus pandemic, the climate crisis, and the war in Ukraine. The German Social Cohesion Panel will also be continued in the second phase. New projects will start as well. For example, Andreas Hepp, professor in communication and media studies at the University of Bremen’s ZeMKI, with researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Media Research | Hans-Bredow-Institute (HBI) in Hamburg, focuses on “prototypes” of social cohesion. “Platforms such as Tiktok or Instagram are often associated with radicalization in public perception,” says Hepp. Alternative platform models such as Zebras Unite – a pioneering startup community committed to sustainability, inclusion, and social responsibility – show that things can be done differently. The project will investigate new ways of creating cohesion through platforms using examples from various pioneer communities. These “prototypes” will then be discussed in future workshops with interested parties to determine which forms of implementation would work well.

Knowledge transfer plays an essential role in the research institute. Methods for this transfer include “dispute clubs” in Frankfurt on political and social topics, providing materials for teachers, or a service desk for authorities with brief analyses of current political issues. In this way, the researchers enrich a debate that ultimately affects everyone.