Welcome to the Zukunftskolleg, Philip Rathgeb!
Philip Rathgeb's Postdoctoral Fellowship starts today. He is associated with the Department of Politics and Public Administration. At the Zukunftskolleg, Philip will work on a project entitled "When populism meets government: The social policy impact of the radical right in Europe".
The rise of populist radical right parties (PRRPs) can be witnessed across most European democracies. Political scientists possess powerful theoretical elaborations on the causes of this electoral shift, but they still know very little about its consequences for the largest part of government activity: the welfare state. This is what his research project will study. Its principal objective is to identify and explain how European PRRPs influence social policy outputs when they are in government, i.e. their social policy impact. With this agenda Philip aims to address a substantial literature gap and contribute to an informed public debate about how the perhaps most dynamic partisan force of our time connects citizens to the exercise of political power.
Philip obtained his PhD in political science at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Italy. His doctoral research was awarded with the Theodor-Körner-Prize. Find more information about him here.