WZB - Berlin Social Science Center

“Challenges to International Orders: Causes and Consequences”  is the topic of our 2nd Annual Interdisciplinary Conference, which will take place from 7–9 October. We warmly invite you to submit your paper and to share the call for papers within your networks.

Social background influences how hard children try. However, incentives at school can reduce socioeconomic inequalities, as a new study by Jonas Radl and Heike Solga shows.

How do voters react to the emergence of new “radically progressive” parties perceived? A WZB study shows that the electoral success of new parties is leading to a countermovement towards conservative parties. 

Controlling the digital public sphere is costly. To achieve this, authoritarian governments often rely on direct investments from other autocracies in Internet infrastructure, as shown in a new study by Lisa Garbe.

High levels of inequality lead to an unrealistically optimistic view of opportunities for social advancement—a mechanism that stabilizes social inequality. This shows a new WZB study by Julia Baumann and Yiming Liu.

The Germany Report 2025 by the international research network Fairwork shows a continuing need for improvement.