As a retired political scientist who has spent many years engaged in comparative research, particularly between North America and Europe, I am now driven by a desire to bring this knowledge and this type of research to socially engaged circles. My areas of interest range from the potential of local politics and social movements to the major structural shifts and geopolitical changes that form the context for our active engagement.
At present, we can learn important lessons from the authoritarian developments in the US, which are being met with creative and sustained resistance, particularly at the local level – not only in cities such as Minneapolis – with this resistance primarily supporting migrant neighbours and vehemently defending fundamental rights such as freedom of expression. Or from the election victory of the democratic socialist mayor Zohran Mamdani, who owes this victory not least to his strategy of listening and reaching out even to former Trump voters, and who is now doing everything in his power to make New York City affordable and liveable for all its residents.
Prof. Dr Margit Mayer, a political scientist, urban planner and researcher in social movements, taught as a professor of North American and Comparative Politics at the John F. Kennedy Institute of the Free University of Berlin from 1990 to 2014. She is currently a Senior Fellow (Associate Professor) at the Centre for Metropolitan Studies at the Technical University of Berlin.
For further reading:
Interview: “#BlackLivesMatter in den USA: Von rassistischer Unterdrückung zum Black Capitalism?“, CILIP: Zeitschrift für Bürgerrechte & Polize), 127 (Dezember 2021), S. 64-69
