Wolfgang Merkel

Prof. Wolfgang Merkel, Professor at the Humboldt University of Berlin

Wolfgang Merkel was born in 1952 in Hof in Germany. He studied sports, sports science, history and political science at the University of Heidelberg and completed his PhD in political science in 1985.

In 1994 Merkel accepted a call for professorship in political science from the University of Mainz. From 1997-1998 he was the managing director of the Institute of Political Science at the University of Mainz. In 1999 Merkel became professor at the Institute of Political Science at the University of Heidelberg.

Since 2004 Merkel is director of the research unit Democracy and Democratization at the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB) and professor of Comparative Political Science and Democracy Research at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

Merkel is member of a number of key bodies, including the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. Moreover, he is head of the Center for Global Constitutionalism and head of the bridging project "The Political Sociology of Cosmopolitanism and Communitarianism" at the Berlin Social Science Center.

Recommended Literature:

Merkel, Wolfgang, Alexander Petring, Christian Henkes, and Christoph Egle. Social Democracy in Power: The Capacity to Reform. London/New York: Routledge, 2008.  

Merkel, Wolfgang, "Social Justice and the Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism." European Journal of Sociology 43.01 (2002)

Merkel, Wolfgang, "After the Golden Age: Is Social Democracy Doomed to Decline?" EconStor Open Access Articles (1991)