Richard Stöss (born 18 March 1944) 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 (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

and extraordinary professor at the

Free University of Berlin The Free University of Berlin (, often abbreviated as FU Berlin or simply FU) is a public university, public research university in Berlin, Germany. It was founded in West Berlin in 1948 with American support during the early Cold War period a ...

. The focus of his research is on

right-wing extremism Far-right politics, often termed right-wing extremism, encompasses a range of ideologies that are marked by ultraconservatism, authoritarianism, ultranationalism, and nativism. This political spectrum situates itself on the far end of the ...

and on

political parties A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or p ...

Life

Richard Stöss was born during the final part of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

Sankt Goar Sankt Goar () is a town on the west bank of the Middle Rhine in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis (district) in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' Hunsrück-Mittelrhein, whose seat is in Emmelshausen. Sankt Goar is w ...

, a small wine producing town on the left bank along the narrow section of the

Rhine Gorge The Rhine Gorge is a popular name for the Upper Middle Rhine Valley, a section of the Rhine between Koblenz and Rüdesheim in the states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse in Germany. It was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in Ju ...

between

Koblenz Koblenz ( , , ; Moselle Franconian language, Moselle Franconian: ''Kowelenz'') is a German city on the banks of the Rhine (Middle Rhine) and the Moselle, a multinational tributary. Koblenz was established as a Roman Empire, Roman military p ...

and

Mainz Mainz (; #Names and etymology, see below) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, and with around 223,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 35th-largest city. It lies in ...

. He passed his school final exams (''Abitur'') in 1965, just a few weeks short of his twenty-first birthday. Between 1969 and 1996 he worked at the Central Institute for Social Sciences Research at the

, which is where in 1970 he received his first degree, in

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

s . Till 1971 he combined his studies with part time work as a research assistant. Between 1971 and 1976 he was a research assistant, and between 1976 and 1996 he was a research associate (initially on the DFG "Party systems" project, and subsequently unrestricted). He was supervised for his doctorate, which he received in 1978, by . His

habilitation Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in Germany, France, Italy, Poland and some other European and non-English-speaking countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excelle ...

, also awarded by the

, followed in 1984, was received in return for a dissertation on the "structure and development of the party system" in

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

, which was subsequently adapted for wider publication. In 1996 Stöss became a member of the Department of Political Sciences (today the Department of Political and Social Sciences) at the

, also taking on the top job at the Otto Suhr Institute's "Otto-Stammer-Zentrum". In 2004 he was appointed an extraordinary professor. Richard Stöss is a member of the SPD. He has been retired from his full-time university commitments since April 2009.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stöss, Richard German political scientists Academic staff of the Free University of Berlin Social Democratic Party of Germany 1944 births Living people