Department of Politics

A new Department of Politics at IOS

From 2025 onward, a new Department of Politics will be established at IOS. The Department is committed to conducting theoretically and methodologically driven political science research, with a regional focus on Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. The mission of the Department is to explore political change at all levels. To this end, the Department’s research will concentrate on the diverse fields of political science, including International Relations, as well as associated disciplines that study the political sphere. The Department's guiding principle is to take regional specificities seriously and to research politics with a strong area studies focus, i.e. with knowledge of the national languages and local knowledge production. In this manner, the Department of Politics endeavours to achieve a dual integration: of political science into the area studies and vice versa.

In its inaugural phase, the research programme of the recently established Department of Politics will concentrate on three fields: 1) peace and conflict studies, 2) International Relations and International Law, and 3) comparative political science. The dissemination of knowledge and the communication of scientific findings, including the provision of policy advice, will be a further focal point of the new Department’s activities.

Since 2018, the Political Science Research Group and, subsequently, the Department of Politics have assumed responsibility for editing a total of ten issues of the Russland- and Ukraine-Analysen each year. The Länder-Analysen are available open access and offer scholarship-based expert contributions on current political, economic, social and cultural developments in Eastern Europe. In addition, members of the Department contribute to the English-language publication formats of the Russian and Ukrainian Analytical Digests.