News and Press Releases

Mid-July saw Emma Ischinsky defend her dissertation titled “(Un)Covering the Rich: Invisibility, Deservingness, and Legitimation in Mediated Representations of Germany’s Wealth Elite” at the University of Cologne. Her cumulative dissertation examines German media reporting to consider how extreme wealth concentration can persist despite the tensions that exist between it and democratic norms and ideals of fairness and merit. more

Palgrave Macmillan has recently published Agents of Migration: Institutional Embeddedness of Labour Brokerage in Nepal by Sandhya A.S. Based on the author’s dissertation at the MPIfG, the book centers on the agents and intermediaries that play a growing role in facilitating labor migration.
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MPIfG postdoc Bryan Boyle and his co-author Vandebroeck are the recipients of this year’s Distinguished Scholarly Article Award of the Labor and Labor Movements Section of the American Sociological Association (ASA). Their award-winning paper, “The Labor of Distinction: Butlers, Service Work, and the Production of Elite Lifestyles,” explores how elites use the labor of service workers to produce and reproduce distinct lifestyles. more

“With Neighbours Like These: Navigating Dependency between Russia and the EU 2000–2022” is the title of Thomas Barrett’s dissertation, which he successfully defended at the University of Cologne in mid-June this year. His study examines how countries that are the focus of competing EU and Russian Federation integration projects respond to their dependent position in relation to these two neighbors. more

The Council for European Studies has honored MPIfG alum Björn Bremer with its Carolina de Miguel Moyer Young Scholar Award 2026. Established in 2021 in memory of the political scientist Carolina de Miguel Moyer, the annual award recognizes researchers under the age of 40 or within ten years of earning their PhD who have contributed significantly to interdisciplinary research on Europe. more

At the end of May, Adriana Cassis defended her dissertation at the University of Duisburg-Essen. “Having It All – or Nothing at All? The Transnational Political Participation of Children of Turkish Immigrants in Germany and the Netherlands” begins from a paradox: Given that children born to immigrants in their country of residence have full access to education and political rights, they could be expected to be more politically engaged than their parents. And yet participation gaps persist into the second generation. more

The MPIfG’s Journalist in Residence between June and August 2026 is Kia Vahland, an editor with Süddeutsche Zeitung. During her stay at the MPIfG she will be working on how German cities are responding to the ecological, social, and political challenges of climate change in international comparison. more