Heinrich Best is Professor of Sociology at the University of Jena where he holds the Chair of Social Science Research Methods/Structural Analysis of Modern Societies. His research is mainly focussed on the intertemporal and intercultural comparison of political actors and settings in a European context based on quantitative analyses of individual and aggregate data. Professor Best’s publications include Parliamentary Representatives in Europe 1848-2000 (Oxford University Press, 2000) and Elites and Social Change. The Socialist and Post-Socialist Experience (Reinhold Krämer Verlag, 2009).