Christian Welzel (born 1964) is a German

political scientist Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

at the Leuphana University Lueneburg and director of research at the World Values Survey Association. He is known for the model of

cultural dimensions Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups.Tylo ...

which measures emancipative values and secular values.

University education and career

Welzel obtained his

Magister Artium A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

(M.A.) degree in political science and economic history at the

Saarland University Saarland University (german: Universität des Saarlandes, ) is a public research university located in Saarbrücken, the capital of the German state of Saarland. It was founded in 1948 in Homburg in co-operation with France and is organized in s ...

in 1991 and continued with a doctorate at the

University of Potsdam The University of Potsdam is a public university in Potsdam, capital of the state of Brandenburg, Germany. It is mainly situated across three campuses in the city. Some faculty buildings are part of the New Palace of Sanssouci which is known ...

. For his monograph ''Democratic Elite Change: The Renewal of East German Elites from the Perspective of Democratic Sociology'' he was awarded a PhD with distinction in 1996. He worked as a senior research fellow in the department of “Institutions and Social Change” of the

Social Science Research Center Berlin The WZB Berlin Social Science Center (german: Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung, WZB), also known by its German initials WZB, is an internationally renowned research institute for the social sciences, the largest such institutio ...

and qualified as professor at the

Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public research university in Berlin, Germany. It is consistently ranked among Germany's best universities, with particular strengths in political science and t ...

. Following the publication of ''Vantage Point ‘Human Development’: On the Roots of Democracy and the Causes of its Diffusion'' he became associate professor and started working as visiting professor at the University of Potsdam in 2000. In 2002, he moved to Bremen University as associate professor of political science. In 2006 Welzel was promoted to

full professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

. Having spent eight years in Bremen, he took a new job as professor of political culture research at the Institute of Political Science and Center for the Study of Democracy at the Leuphana University in 2010. In the same year, he became research professor at the Higher School of Economics (HSE) in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Welzel also spends much time in the United States, where he maintains close ties with researchers and professors from the Center for the Study of Democracy at the

University of California The University of California (UC) is a public land-grant research university system in the U.S. state of California. The system is composed of the campuses at Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Franci ...

, Irvine. In 2015 he became a member of the

German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (german: Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina – Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften), short Leopoldina, is the national academy of Germany, and is located in Halle (Saale). Founde ...

Areas of academic interest

* Modernization,

social change Social change is the alteration of the social order of a society which may include changes in social institutions, social behaviours or social relations. Definition Social change may not refer to the notion of social progress or socio ...

, and

human development Human development may refer to: * Development of the human body * Developmental psychology * Human development (economics) * Human Development Index, an index used to rank countries by level of human development * Human evolution Human evoluti ...

* Democratization, quality of democracy and governance quality * Value formation,

cultural change Culture change is a term used in public policy making that emphasizes the influence of cultural capital on individual and community behavior. It has been sometimes called repositioning of culture, which means the reconstruction of the cultural conce ...

Generational Replacement Generational replacement is a theory proposed by Paul R. Abramson (political scientist), Paul R. Abramson and Ronald Inglehart that attributes changes in values between young people and their elders to their different circumstances growing up. Beca ...

and

public opinion Public opinion is the collective opinion on a specific topic or voting intention relevant to a society. It is the people's views on matters affecting them. Etymology The term "public opinion" was derived from the French ', which was first use ...

Protest A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration or remonstrance) is a public expression of objection, disapproval or dissent towards an idea or action, typically a political one. Protests can be thought of as acts of cooper ...

participation Participation or Participant may refer to: Politics *Participation (decision making), mechanisms for people to participate in social decisions *Civic participation, engagement by the citizens in government *e-participation, citizen participation ...

and

social movements A social movement is a loosely organized effort by a large group of people to achieve a particular goal, typically a social or political one. This may be to carry out a social change, or to resist or undo one. It is a type of group action and ma ...

Civil society Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.social capital

Value orientation, value change and World Values Survey

Since Welzel joined the Center for the Study of Democracy at the Leuphana University in Lueneburg, work on the World Values Survey project has been an important part of the center’s research activities. Welzel is responsible for the German part of the survey, which involves 2000 face-to-face interviews. In recent years, Welzel has focused largely on the effect that emancipative values have on the emergence and stability of democratic regimes and developed a well-reasoned theory of emancipation. In his latest book

Freedom Rising ''Freedom Rising: Human Empowerment and the Quest for Emancipation'' is a 2013 book by the German Political science, political scientist Christian Welzel, professor of political culture and political sociology at Lüneburg University, Leuphana U ...

he presents an all-embracing theory of “why human freedom gave way to increasing oppression since the invention of states - and why this trend began to reverse itself more recently, leading to a rapid expansion of universal freedoms and democracy.”Quote from http://www.cambridge.org/welzel

Bibliography

''Monographs'' * . * . * . * . ''Edited Volumes'' * . * . * . ''Scientific articles'' * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * . * .

References

External links

Christian Welzel's site at Leuphana University LueneburgWorld Values Survey AssociationChristian Welzel's ''Freedom Rising'' at Cambridge University Press
with extensive online resources for replication studies
Christian Welzel's Google Scholar profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Welzel, Christian 1964 births Leuphana University of Lüneburg faculty German political scientists Higher School of Economics faculty Winners of the Stein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Social Science Research Living people Members of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina