Selma Kropp, Visiting Fellow at PRIF’s International Institutions Research Department from March to May 2024, has completed her current research project. Titled “Children’s Rights in the Context of Migration. Navigating the Regime Complex between Strasbourg, Brussels, and Geneva,” it examined the options available to European bureaucrats for pushing controversial children's rights issues, such as the deprivation of liberty of children in migration scenarios, onto the European agenda.
The Claus Wisser Fellowship 2024/25 on “The Future of Democracy” offered Selma Kropp the opportunity to pick up on an aspect of her PhD thesis, which she completed in spring 2025 at the European University Institute in Florence. Each year, the program brings two outstanding postdoctoral researchers to Frankfurt to conduct research on key issues relating to the transformation of normative orders.
Based on interviews with members of governmental and non-governmental organizations, she has identified specific mechanisms that bureaucrats use to keep controversial issues on the agenda – even against the interests of other member states. In light of the continued detention of children despite self-imposed standards, the political scientist warns: “If the very principle of people having fundamental rights is called into question, discourse is shifting in a concerning direction.”
The fellowships at Goethe University’s Research Center Normative Orders are funded by a generous donation from the late Claus Wisser and carried out in cooperation with the Pro Universitate Foundation. Rainer Forst and Nicole Deitelhoff are responsible for the program, which saw Selma Kropp’s colleague Luca Hemmerich also graduate in 2024/2025.
Detailed information about the 2024/2025 fellows can be found in the Goethe University’s UniReport magazine (in German).