At a Glance

The Department of Political and Social Sciences consists of the Otto Suhr Institute of Political Science, the Institute of Sociology, the Institute for Media and Communication Studies, and the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology.

The research on political and social sciences performed within the department studies the phenomena involved in living together as a society from a number of different perspectives. Research topics include issues in international relations, the political design and layout of processes that take place within global and national networks, and transregional politics within and outside Europe. One important research focus is on the cultural and social aspects of migration histories in the world today, which are examined in both European and non-European contexts. Global processes also play a role in the research on environmental policies and natural disasters, as well as the conditions, structures, content, and effects of media-based communication.

Increasingly important in the department are also questions about the role of emotions in social interactions and movements as well as the social and cultural conditions of health and disease. Social inequalities in both the European and non-European context, including the analysis of gender relations, also play an important role.

The department is one of the most research-intensive political and social scientific institutions in Germany. Examples of this are a collaborative research center and a group of researchers in the fields of international relations and European studies, and participation in research networks including two clusters supported by the German Excellence Initiative, Topoi and Languages of Emotion, and two graduate schools funded through the same initiative, the Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures and Societies and the Graduate School of East Asian Studies.