Online Workshop: Why do East and West Germans Protest? An Analysis of Determinants with the data of ALLBUS 2018

On May 12th, the GSPC hosted a workshop with our guests Prof. em. Dr. Peter Schmidt (University of Giessen) and Prof. em. Dr. Karl-Dieter Opp (University of Leipzig) titled “Why do East and West Germans Protest? An Analysis of Determinants with the data of ALLBUS 2018”.

After a welcome address by the GSPC’s spokesperson Prof. Dr. Stefan Schirm and our PhD candidate Daniel Gloris, our guests introduced us to their application of a theory-driven quantitative social research program. They applied Mancur Olsen’s theory of collective action to explain why people participated in the Leipzig demonstration in 1989 and 1990. Furthermore, they showed the value of testing hypotheses from a past DFG funded project with the representative German dataset ALLBUS 2018 (Allgemeine Bevölkerungsumfrage der Sozialwissenschaften). One of their primary results using structural equation modeling (SEM) showed that membership in social groups and thus social incentives are the strongest explanatory factor for protest participation.
We thank both our guest speakers for their thought-provoking talk and the fruitful discussion afterwards!

If you want to know more, feel free to contact the management of the GSPC.