Research is fascinating!

At its core, it’s about one question: why are people willing to support others? So, the focus is on political solidarity, which is an important aspect of social cohesion.

For us, political solidarity primarily means a willingness to pursue common goals or support others – including people from different sections of society, such as those with and without a migration background. How does this willingness develop, how does it change, and what factors influence it?

Everyday solidarity tends to involve direct help between people who know each other or happen to meet. Someone might do the shopping for an elderly neighbour or help friends move house.

I use the term political solidarity when people support others they do not know personally, and that support is channelled through politics and state institutions. One example is the willingness to support unemployed people, refugees or people in another EU country facing a crisis through taxes and social security contributions.

I use longitudinal data that track the same people over several years. This allows me to see how their attitudes have changed in relation to the number of refugees accommodated in their city or district.

Take Bremerhaven, for example. During the period covered by the study, the proportion of refugees in the population almost tripled. In Offenbach, in the state of Hesse, by contrast, it remained roughly the same. I compared whether people’s attitudes developed differently in places like these.

The findings show that opposition to granting social benefits to migrants has increased overall. But the crucial point is that this increase has not been greater in places that have accommodated particularly large numbers of refugees. In other words, the local proportion of refugees does not explain the change.

It suggests that attitudes towards including or excluding migrants from social benefits are shaped less by people’s own experiences in their local area than by nationwide debates about migration.

Yes, quite surprised. More generally, I was struck by how stable political solidarity often remains, even in times of crisis.

When it comes to European solidarity in particular, you might expect economic crises or the COVID-19 pandemic to lead to a marked decline. But that is not what we see. During the pandemic, political solidarity – and everyday solidarity too – actually increased at first. Many people, for instance, did the shopping for older people. Later, that effect gradually faded.

Overall, attitudes change much more slowly and less dramatically than public debates sometimes lead us to believe.

Our research is based on large-scale longitudinal surveys and surveys of our own. We follow the same people over several years. This means that we can interview someone who took part in one of our surveys several years ago again and see how their attitudes have changed. We can also identify the developments that play a role in those changes.

For example, if someone increasingly views their own financial situation, or the situation in Germany, in a more negative light, we can examine whether their level of solidarity declines at the same time.

One key moment was my undergraduate dissertation. At the time, I investigated how members of the German Bundestag responded to enquiries from members of the public, depending on what the name of the person making the enquiry sounded like.

That was the first time I had really conducted research of my own, and I realised that your own work can genuinely generate new insights into our society. From then on, I knew I wanted to pursue this path.

After completing my Master’s in Social Science, specialising in research methods, at Ruhr University Bochum, the PhD position in the political solidarity project at the University of Duisburg-Essen (UDE) was a perfect fit, both academically and personally.

I had other options too, including working in youth policy, where I was also employed at the time. But I really wanted to seize this opportunity.

Absolutely. I start with an idea or a theory, and then the data show whether it holds up or not. It becomes particularly exciting when they reveal something completely different from what I expected.

For example, one of my studies shows that material circumstances, such as income, play a smaller role in changes in European solidarity than I had anticipated. For me, that immediately opened up a new avenue for further research.

Not at all. There are projects you start and then have to abandon because they simply do not work. Naturally, in those moments, you start wondering whether you are good enough to do this. It can be frustrating at first.

For example, I still have a half-finished paper sitting in a drawer. It explores whether solidarity is affected by what people associate with the concept of ‘nationality’: shared values or common ancestry.

I wanted to test whether different ideas about nationality influence solidarity. To do this, I used various texts and images. But the approach did not work: I could not reliably bring the intended interpretation to the forefront. So I had to put the project on hold for the time being.

Talking to other people helps.

At some point, you realise that pretty much everyone experiences these doubts and setbacks. From the outside, you usually only see the finished journal articles and successful results – not all the things that went wrong along the way.

Over time, you learn that this is simply part of the research process.

The fact that what I do matters. Knowing that my research can help us better understand social developments gives my work a tremendous sense of purpose.

And, of course, there is the curiosity that drives me to keep looking for answers.

Without a doubt, the supervision provided by Professor Achim Goerres and the opportunity to exchange ideas with the research group. At our regular meetings, I could speak openly about problems and always received helpful feedback. That was particularly important after setbacks.

I have been able to develop my own research questions and pursue them over several years. At the same time, I have learnt an enormous amount in my field. I can now see that I’m genuinely able to conduct research independently. And that is precisely the aim of a PhD.

Despite all the uncertainties, I can hardly imagine a more meaningful career than gaining a better understanding of how our society works – and how we can live together successfully.

When I published my first article in an academic journal, it was the first time I felt that I was contributing something to our collective knowledge.

And when I presented my research findings at my first international conference and was able to discuss them afterwards, I realised that I was part of the academic community.

I would like to stay in research because I find the work deeply rewarding. The topics I work on and the way I approach my work will certainly continue to shape my career, wherever my path takes me.

Jakob Eicheler, Institute of Political Science, Tel. 0203 379 1714, jakob.eicheler@uni-due.de

Editorial contact: Janina Balzer, janina.balzer@uni-due.de