Congratulations to our postdoc Margherita Cusmano, who has been awarded Second Prize in the Social Sciences Section of the Deutscher Studienpreis by the Körber Foundation for her dissertation “How migrants view economic inequality: A mixed-methods study in Germany”.

On 26 June, the Gegenwartslese premiered, the Institute's new format creating a space of encounter between social science, literature, and the public. Our guest authors were Julia Friedrichs and Aladin El-Mafaalani. (Read the full report)

At the Max Planck Society's 77th Annual Assembly in Frankfurt, Steffen Mau joined historian Hedwig Richter to discuss the future of democracy. Mau set out several crises – declining participation, eroding trust in politics and parties, a widening social gap, resurgent authoritarian rivals. Read the Max Planck Society's report. Please click here to play the video.

July 8, 2026 | Frankfurt am Main. Steffen Mau’s lecture as part of the Kantorowicz Lectures in Political Language asks: Why has our social model come under such pressure, and in what sense can we speak of a crisis? How do people react under such conditions? How are the constellations of political conflict changing?

At the conference "Museen öffnen! Vielfalt als Chance," Steven Vertovec held the keynote "On Superdiversity, Social Complexity and the Role of Museums." The recording is now online.

Göttingen, May 15, 2026 – Steven Vertovec, Managing Director of the Max Planck Institute for Political and Social Science (MPIPS), has been appointed President of the newly established International Panel on Migration (IPM). The IPM is an independent, interdisciplinary, and permanent scientific institution dedicated to bridging the gap between migration research, policymaking, and public discourse.

Georg Diez in conversation with Hans Kundnani, Visiting Fellow at the Remarque Institute at New York University and Open Society Foundations Ideas Workshop Fellow.

Steven Vertovec has launched Futures of Difference, an initiative exploring the processes, discourses, and possible trajectories of key social categories worldwide through essays, podcasts, and short films by leading scholars. New content is published weekly on Substack, YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

Noyonika Das, a PhD researcher on the ERC-funded Elections, Violence, and Parties (EVaP) project led by our Director Ursula Daxecker, has published an analysis of the 2026 West Bengal election in Netra News. The results, she argues, defy the obvious story.

We are deeply saddened to announce that Professor Ran Hirschl, Max Planck Fellow at our institute from 2018 to 2021, passed away on May 19, 2026. His death is a great loss to the scientific community and to all who knew him.

Ursula Daxecker will present two papers at the EPSS: Understanding Political Elites’ Support for Democracy: Evidence from Indian Politicians and The Persistence of Political Violence in Democracy: Evidence from Micro-level Data in India