Hans Jonas Gunzelmann

Adapting your CV to a specific format required for a job or grant application is such a waste of time. If you can't read a common CV, maybe you shouldn't be reviewing.

From our latest issue: A Ticking Time Bomb: Restrictions on Abortion Rights and Physical Integrity Rights Abuses by NAZLI AVDAN, AMANDA MURDIE, VICTOR ASAL. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Research associate – doctoral candidate (75%) (ID 377) The Manifesto Project analyses parties’ election manifestos in order to study parties’ policy preferences. To this end, the project conducts conte...

📣 Come work with us! The @wzb.bsky.social Center for Civil Society Research is looking for a research associate/doctoral candidate (75%) for a 3 year period, starting on Apr 1, 2026. The researcher will work in the Manifesto Project. More:
wzb.hr4you.org/job/view/428...

Apply by Jan 25, 2026! 🗓️

Zivilgesellschaft unter Druck – wie die "Kleine Anfrage" der CDU/CSU-Fraktion nachhaltig die Demokratie schwächt - Reversed Magazine Die organisierte Zivilgesellschaft steht unter Druck: Das "Anti-NGO-Narrativ" nimmt zu - und die CDU hat daran einen maßgeblichen Anteil.

Angriffe auf die Zivilgesellschaft werden auch im Online-Diskurs deutlich. Laut Studie von Maecenata war die Kleine Anfrage der Union in ein Schlüsselmoment. Danach hat sich das Verhältnis von Diskussionsbeiträgen über NGOs in Deutschland danach eindeutig ins Negative 2:1, zuvor 1:1, verschoben. …

New paper in Government & Opposition:

Justifying and Negotiating Responses to the Radical Right: The Case of the Swedish Labour Movement and the Intra-Organizational Arena

Together with @slsalo.bsky.social and @podmalm.bsky.social.

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Dear Social Science,
The only puzzle is why you repeat "puzzle" and "puzzling" over and over.
Sincerely,
Common Sense

A cloudless sky over a lake that is starting to freeze at the edges

A cloudless sky over a lake that is starting to freeze at the edges

Weather app showing that the current conditions are 8F and sunny

Yes, winter is super cold in Wisconsin. But super cold air can't hold moisture. Which means that winter is full of bright, clear, cloudless days.

Ende letzter Woche stufte das US-Außenministerium #AntifaOst als ausländische Terrororganisation ein. Mit dem epd sprach über das Label:

www.evangelisch.de/inhalte/2496...

Far-right contention in civil society: multiple lenses on action repertoires, actors, and targets Abstract. Over the past decade, the far right has been on the rise in civil societies across Europe. Civil society organizations have been challenged by the far right in governments, political parties...

@hajogu.bsky.social und @chjncke.bsky.social erstellen einen konzeptionellen Rahmen und eine Methotik zur Untersuchung der extremen Rechten in der Zivilgesellschaft und wenden dies in einer Fallstudie an:
doi.org/10.1162/EUSO...

Bewegungsparteien der extremen Rechten in Europa Article Bewegungsparteien der extremen Rechten in Europa was published on November 30, 2025 in the journal Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen (volume 38, issue 4).

Neue Publikation: Meine Rezension 'Bewegungsparteien der extremen Rechten in Europa' ist im Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen erschienen

Über das Buch von @pietrocastellig.bsky.social & @andreapirro.it zu hybriden Strategien der extremen Rechten zwischen Protest & Parlament

➡️ shorturl.at/WEqUd

We provide a brief overview of the state of the art on the contributions of organized civil society and social movements to democracy - but we also address 'uncivil' society and authoritarian movements. In the spirit of the encyclopedia, we specifically point to international perspectives.

Civil society and democracy are often closely associated - yet their relationship complex and ambiguous. In this contribution, we ask: under what conditions does civil society support democracy—and when does it undermine it?

Civil Society and Democracy

💡New publication with @tevoelker.bsky.social and @swenhutter.bsky.social:

"Civil Society and Democracy" In: List, R.A., Anheier, H.K., Toepler, S. (eds) International Encyclopedia of Civil Society

link.springer.com/rwe/10.1007/...

Wir arbeiten daran. Veröffentlichung kommt (hoffentlich) bald!
www.wzb.eu/de/forschung...

How easy is it to fudge your scientific rank? Meet Larry, the world’s most cited cat “Exercise in absurdity” reveals flaws in Google Scholar’s productivity metrics

How easy is it to fudge your scientific rank? Meet Larry, the world’s most cited cat -- Science www.science.org/content/arti...

Far-right contention in civil society: multiple lenses on action repertoires, actors, and targets Abstract. Over the past decade, the far right has been on the rise in civil societies across Europe. Civil society organizations have been challenged by the far right in governments, political parties...

Link to the paper:
direct.mit.edu/euso/article...

This does not mean that the far right does not posses a threat. But cooperative actions such as donation offers or challenges from within civil society require different counter-strategies than attacks from outside.

Our findings challenge the notion of a dichotomy between a democratic civil society and the far right as an outside force that attacks CSOs or their members.

What does this mean? We need to combine different lenses to get a comprehensive picture of the far right in civil society that goes beyond protest and violence.

Finding (4): The picture of far-right contention in civil society depends on the lens through which one looks. While the media-observer lens sees primarily adversarial actions, the antagonist-observer lens sees mostly autonomous actions, while the target lens perceives more cooperative events.

Finding (3): Our analysis shows that far-right contention primarily targets the field level rather than individual volunteers or CSOs.

Finding (2): The far right is often perceived as a challenge that is external to civil society,
emanating from actors whose ideology is clearly nativist and authoritarian. However, our analyses show that many actors come from within civil society and cannot be identified as ideologically far-right.

Finding (1): The far-right repertoire of contention in civil society goes beyond adversarial forms
such as threats or violence. We find a substantial number of cooperative and autonomous forms of action.

We use quantitative and qualitative coding of these sources to map far-right contentious events within German civil societ from 2018-2023. We code the action repertoires, actors, and targets of far-right contention.

We propose to combine three lenses to map far-right contention in civil society: The media-observer lens, the antagonist observer lens, and the target lens. We employ a newspaper (taz), antifa magazines, and qualitative interviews as sources for these lenses.

In this paper, we propose the concept of "far-right contention in civil society" to capture how the far right engages with volunteers, civic organizations, and entire civil society fields. We look at contentious events a) by far-right actors and/or b) which involve nativist or authoritarian claims.

Title and Abstract of the paper "Far-right contention in civil society: multiple lenses on action repertoires, actors, and targets". Authors: Hans Jonas Gunzelmann, Christin Jänicke Abstract: Over the past decade, the far right has been on the rise in civil societies across Europe. Civil society organizations have been challenged by the far right in governments, political parties, and within their own ranks. However, there is little systematic research on how the far right stirs conflict within civil society. Civil society research has tended to ignore ‘uncivil’ society and has instead focused on social capital and cohesion. Research on the noninstitutional side of the far right has been growing but has largely neglected the consequences for established civil society organizations and their members. This article addresses these blind spots by providing a conceptual framework and a methodology for studying the far right in civil society, which is applied to a case study. First, we construct a conceptual framework that adapts the contentious politics paradigm to the study of civil society. We delineate far-right contention within civil society and construct typologies of the action repertoires, actors, and targets. Second, we develop a methodology that combines different lenses to expand our view on far-right contention in civil society. We propose a mixed-methods research design for mapping far-right contentious events. Third, we apply our conceptual framework and methodology to the case of Germany by empirically mapping the action repertoires, actors and targets. Our findings fundamentally shift the scholarly understanding of the far right in civil society: We find that far-right contention in civil society goes well beyond adversarial actions by far-right actors. This has important implications for researchers and practitioners.

💫New paper out with @chjncke.bsky.social in @europeansocieties.bsky.social:

📝"Far-right contention in civil society: Multiple lenses on action repertoires, actors, and targets"

🧵A short thread about the paper:

"Mainstream parties are increasingly allowing the far right to set the agenda" - for the @theguardian.com, @ashifakassam.bsky.social summed up our study.

@tevoelker.bsky.social and I answered some questions to put our results into context. Give it a read!

Study: bit.ly/4hhRFUN

Titelseite des Papers "In die Offensive kommen! Was die demokratische Zivilgesellschaft gegen autoritäre Kräfte tun kann"

Was können wir aus dem autoritären Playbook von Ungarn, Polen, Italien & den USA für Deutschland lernen? Dieser Frage sind Victoria Gulde & ich beim TTRex nachgegangen. Eine ausführliche Analyse folgt - hier schon mal 8 Schlüsse für demokratische Zivilgesellschaft, um erfolgreich entgegenzuhalten.

Abstract

New paper out with @dasalgon.bsky.social: “Far-Right Agenda Setting: How the Far Right influences the Political Mainstream” doi.org/10.1017/S1475676525100066 #openaccess in @ejprjournal.bsky.social🧵