22.05.2026

Institutskolloquium IfP (24.06.26) –  Nationalism, the politics of memory and democratic backsliding

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Christina Zuber (University of Konstanz)

Wednesday, June 24, 2026, 16:00 (c.t.)
Room 124, Institut für Politikwissenschaft, or online via Zoom

About the lecture: Democratic backsliding results from the actions of illiberal, yet democratically elected governments. This points to a puzzle: How do illiberals generate electoral support, even as they undermine democratic institutions? Recent conceptual contributions separate illiberalism’s anti-individualistic, anti-pluralist core from a set of complementary ideologies that flesh out this core in different ways. These complementary ideologies range from religious conservatism to nationalism or socialism. They can help make illiberalism palatable to voters. However, empirical studies have only focused on selected appeals (in particular nationalism) and/or selected cases. This presentation presents early results from a research project that aims to contribute a more comprehensive empirical understanding of why and how illiberals persuade voters. The first part maps “varieties of illiberalism” among European parties and electorates, assessing whether these varieties yield different electoral pay-offs in post-fascist and post-communist societies, due to their different authoritarian histories and politics of memory. Second, we explore how ordinary citizens normalise or stigmatise varieties of illiberalism in light of their society‘s memory culture through a series of focus groups conducted in Poland, East and West Germany. Exploring the links between an illiberal core and a variety of complementary ideologies in European parties’ platforms and voters’ minds, we hope to clarify what makes illiberal ideas persuasive, and, by implication, how to compete against them.

The lecture will be held in English

Flyer for the lecture!

Christina Isabel Zuber is full Professor of German Politics at the Department of Politics and Public Administration of the University of Konstanz. She earned her PhD from the Cologne Centre for Comparative Politics in 2012 and held post-doctoral positions at the University of Zurich, University of Bremen and Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. In the 2024–25 academic year, she was a Jean Monnet Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre of the European University Institute in Florence. Her research spans democracy studies and party politics, with particular emphasis on nationalist mobilisation, and the politics of migration and citizenship. Her 2022 monograph, Ideational Legacies and the Politics of Migration in European Minority Regions, was published by Oxford University Press, and her articles have appeared in leading peer-reviewed journals including Comparative Political Studies, the European Journal of Political Research and Party Politics.