ERC Advanced Grant for Prof. Dr. Christoph Knill

Professor Christoph Knill was successful in the latest round of ERC grants, obtaining an Advanced Grant. The award comes with funding of up to 2.5 million euros. ERC Advanced Grants are aimed at established researchers from all disciplines whose highly innovative work pushes beyond the current frontiers of research and opens up new domains of investigation.

War, corona, climate catastrophe - crises are no longer an exception in modern democracies, but have become the rule. Because these permanent emergencies draw the attention of politicians, areas that are not acutely affected are being overlooked. This in turn can lead to neglected problems also escalating, making governments even more burdened with dealing with an ever-growing number of crises. Crises lead to further crises. This vicious circle can undermine democratic legitimacy and the population's trust dwindles.

Knills project "Systemic Effects of Crises on Policy-Making in Modern Democracies" (CRISPOL) is investigating exactly how this worst-case scenario can come about. "I want to understand which systemic interactions arise in political decisions in response to crisis events and how crises influence the state's ability to solve problems in sectors near and far from the crisis." He wants to understand this both theoretically and empirically, taking a close look at various political sectors in 23 OECD countries over a period of 50 years.