Dr Katja Salomo

Katja Salomo is a postdoctoral researcher at the Social Science Centre Berlin (WZB) and holds a PhD from the University of Jena. Her research focuses on the social conditions that give rise to social intolerance and anti-democratic attitudes in European societies and, consequently, to far-right parties and movements.  In her previous work, she examined how local characteristics of (rural) emigration and (urban) immigration contribute to anti-immigrant attitudes and the success of far-right parties in both densely and sparsely populated areas in Germany. At the European level, she investigates which conditions – ranging from current socioeconomic factors, characteristics of immigration, political systems and policy contexts to historical contexts – make a backlash against immigration and the success of far-right parties more likely. At the ESC, she is taking this research further by investigating which of the many societal characteristics known to contribute to the success of far-right parties carry the most weight, with the aim of developing a more theoretically integrated explanation of why far-right parties are successful in some European countries and not others. Her research has been published in Political Geography, Journal of Urban Affairs and elsewhere.