Climate change – and skepticism toward it – is increasingly present not only among far-right parties but also across the political spectrum in more nuanced forms. This article examines the diverse climate attitudes of local political elites, who play a key role in the implementation of climate policy. We develop an analytical framework to assess varying degrees of climate skepticism, with particular attention to a broader ‘gray zone’ of attitudes that combine acceptance of anthropogenic climate change with doubts about its implications, responsibilities, or policy responses. We empirically examine the views of municipal council members in Saxony and Thuringia – two eastern German states characterized by salient climate and energy policy conflicts and ideologically competitive party systems. Using original web survey data, our findings reveal a wide spectrum of partial climate skepticism extending beyond the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and into parts of the political mainstream. Moreover, we identify substantial variation across different dimensions of climate skepticism as well as significant intra-party heterogeneity. Overall, parties are not monolithic actors on climate-related attitudes but internally diverse organizations in which multiple positions coexist. Understanding these local-level attitudes is crucial for assessing the political feasibility of climate policy implementation. By mapping the ‘gray zone’ of climate skepticism among local political elites, this study contributes to a more fine-grained understanding of climate attitudes within and across party lines.

In 2025, the federal election resulted in historic losses for the outgoing ‘traffic-light coalition’ and saw the return of the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU) to government. The election continued the trend towards even higher party system fragmentation. The Social Democratic Party (SPD) recorded its worst ever result (16.4%), while the Free Democratic Party (FDP) did not surpass the five-percent-threshold. The Alternative for Germany (AfD) became the second largest party (20.8%), and the Left regained relevance (8.8%). A grand coalition between CDU/CSU and SPD emerged as the only viable option but proved fragile. Following two years of recession, economic growth remained close to zero, and unemployment exceeded three million people. Migration and economic concerns dominated public debate, while the AfD continued to gain in the polls. The Hamburg state election confirmed the city’s status as an SPD stronghold, while the CDU, but also the Left and AfD gained considerably.

Following its formation in 1935, the Nazi German think-tank, the Ahnenerbe, launched numerous archaeological investigations, including two expeditions to create detailed casts of Swedish rock art. Previous scholarship has emphasised the pseudoscientific claims made by Ahnenerbe scholars and the racist motivations behind the fieldwork, yet the casts and other documentation from these early expeditions have not been analysed in detail. This article delves into the archives, examining how the casts were produced and interpreted and tackling the question of why it was necessary to make exact copies of rock-art images when the past was already being falsified for political means.

This paper introduces a dynamic theory of ministerial appointments in coalition governments, arguing that party leaders reward members of parliament (MPs) who fulfilled their expected roles in the prior government–opposition conflict. Using all speeches from the German Bundestag of six decades (1961–2021), we estimate MPs’ expressed positions on the government–opposition conflict dimension and assess their effect on cabinet selection. Contrary to the expectation that party leaders prefer moderate ministers to foster cooperation, we find that more loyal MPs—strong government defenders or fierce critics—are more likely to be appointed. These findings highlight how past parliamentary behavior affects future cabinet formation and suggest that ministerial appointments are shaped by partisan loyalty and role fulfillment.

Some early modern Europeans believed that illness was caused by an act of harmful magic perpetrated against a sufferer by another person. This attribution of magical blame was not inevitable, however, although historians’ understanding of the social and emotional dynamics of the process by which illness might be linked to bewitchment remains patchy. This article deepens our understanding of this ‘witch-making’ process and how it was gendered through in-depth analysis of a seventeenth-century German sorcery trial involving two urban craftsmen. It explains how two men who had previously had a socially intimate relationship reached a point at which one began to suspect the other of bewitching him into ill-health. It also establishes when and why the moments of greatest social and emotional tension were reached between the men and their families. This article argues that the sickbed constituted a particularly important temporal stage and spatial context in this process. As a site of bodily suffering, caring expectations and practices, and intense emotions, it required visitors and caregivers to manage their interactions carefully to maintain peace between neighbours. In the trial examined here, those efforts failed.

This paper reviews a purposive sample of doctoral dissertations in second-language education, completed between 2019 and 2023 at universities in Germany. Among the 79 relevant dissertations found from this period, 18 thematic strands were identified, of which 7 were chosen as being particularly relevant for a more in-depth review: (1) evaluation of specific teaching approaches, (2) (partial) language skills, (3) individual variables, (4) special learner groups, (5) multilingualism pedagogies, (6) digital media, and (7) literature and film pedagogy. We identify relevant topics and relate these to trends in research methodology (qualitative/quantitative/mixed methods). We also discuss the depth and breadth of these dissertations and situate their scholarly contributions within German and international research on additional language education. A comparison with the three previous review articles reveals methodological developments and thematic shifts, highlighting both progress and persistent challenges in German-language doctoral research across nearly two decades of scholarship.

Party youth wings (PYWs) are often portrayed as marginal actors within political parties, yet we know little about how they themselves pursue policy-seeking strategies inside their mother parties. This article presents a qualitative case study of PYWs in Germany, examining how German PYWs advance policy-related positions within their parties and how their strategic repertoires are shaped by organisational conditions. It develops a conceptual framework for analysing PYW policy-seeking strategies centred on three party-organisational dimensions: formal organisation, mobilisation potential, and leadership. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with selected PYW leaders across Germany and an analysis of official documents, the study compares different PYWs within a single national party system to explore how formal and informal channels for articulating youth interests are combined. Rather than assessing the effectiveness of these strategies, the study highlights how distinct organisational constellations are associated with different modes of policy-seeking within parties. The findings suggest that mobilisation capacity and leadership-based informal access feature prominently in PYWs’ strategic self-understandings, often taking precedence over formal participatory rights. While empirically grounded in the German case, the article contributes to research on intra-party democracy, youth representation, and party change by clarifying how PYWs navigate opportunities and constraints within party structures.

Over the past decade, high rental prices have become an increasingly serious problem in major Western European cities. While political science research has started to explore the broader political consequences, the local effects on renters in particular remain understudied. Furthermore, little is known about the influence of additional local characteristics that potentially impact the political consequences of high rental prices. This study addresses these research gaps by examining how local rental prices affect renters’ satisfaction with the local public administration, using large-N geocoded survey data collected in forty neighborhoods across ten major German cities. Multilevel regression results reveal a negative relationship between high rental prices and satisfaction with the local public administration that is not offset by greater rental housing availability or the provision of public services. In practical terms, these findings highlight the far-reaching consequences of high rental prices for the political satisfaction of renters, underlining the need for policies that ensure affordable urban housing.

This study analyses the role of selected Catholic, Protestant, and Islamic faith-based organizations (FBOs) as political actors in the context of local refugee politics in Germany. We conducted 30 semi-structured interviews with leaders from local FBOs and examined the data via structured content analysis. The empirical material provided information on three aspects: the self-perceived role as political actors, contacts with political decision-makers, and the perception of the FBO’s means in and influence on (local) political decision-making. Most religious leaders do ascribe a political role to their activities in refugee aid. However, the goals and strategies of this role vary markedly, revealing patterns across the three religious groups. We argue that these differences can be interpreted against the background of the historically evolved role of different faiths in Germany. The study offers new insights into how FBOs engage in politics, advocating for their positions in local refugee and integration policies.