04.09.2026

Chinese Scholar from Portugal Welcomed by the European Centre for Research on Federalism (EZFF)

Dr. Lingkai Kong joins the EZFF as a Visiting Scientist in September 2026. The Institute of Political Science (IfP) at the University of Tübingen welcomes Dr. Lingkai Kong as a Visiting Scientist for one-month research at the European Centre for Research on Federalism (EZFF)

The Institute of Political Science (IfP) and the European Centre for Research on Federalism (ECRF) – in German Europäisches Zentrum für Föderalismus-Forschung Tübingen (EZFF) – at the University of Tübingen welcome Dr. Lingkai Kong, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Research & Development Centre on Law and Society (CEDIS), Faculty of Law, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, and Guest Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Political Science, Istanbul University, for a one-month research stay at the EZFF.

Dr. Kong’s research visit is hosted by Prof. Dr. Gabriele Abels, Director of the EZFF and Chair of Comparative Politics and European Integration at the Institute of Political Science, University of Tübingen.

Dr. Kong is a scholar of constitutional history and federal thought. He holds a PhD in Political Science and International Relations from Izmir University of Economics, Türkiye, a master’s degree from the University of Zurich, Switzerland, and a bachelor’s degree from Beijing Foreign Studies University, China. His research examines how decentralized political and constitutional orders can sustain social cooperation and collective self-governance in complex and pluralistic societies, drawing on political philosophy and the history of political thought, and engaging with themes such as federalism, autonomy, associational democracy, and anarchism.

During his research stay at the EZFF in September 2026, Dr. Kong is completing a research paper on Portugal’s 2018 decentralization reform, provisionally entitled “Symbolic Promises and Institutional Constraints in Portugal’s 2018 Decentralization Reform.” The paper examines whether the reform constitutes a genuine transfer of political power to local government or an administrative reorganization within the existing unitary state.

Dr. Kong argues that the reform represents a case of symbolic decentralization: three legal techniques embedded in the law enable the central government to transfer operational responsibilities while retaining institutional control. The paper employs the principle of subsidiarity as its analytical framework and draws on German federalism as a comparative contrast, where subsidiarity operates within a constitutionally entrenched federal order rather than the unitary premise of the Portuguese case.

More information about Dr. Lingkai Kong

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