Wolfgang Merkel is Professor of Comparative Political Science and Policy Research at the Humboldt University of Berlin, and serves as Director of the research unit on “Democracy and Democratization” at the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB). He is the author and co-author of a number of books, including most recently Nur schöner Schein? Demokratische Innovationen in Theorie und Praxis (2015) and most recently in English, The Future of Representative Democracy (2011). He has written a number of scholarly articles on issues of democratization, dictatorship, political parties, social justice and democratic crises, and he is a frequent commentator on democracy in the German media. He has spoken at CES in the past on the compatibility of capitalism and democracy, and will present on “The Crisis of Democracy in the EU” during his visit as a John F. Kennedy Memorial Policy Kennedy Fellow.
