Together with Juan Albarracín Dierolf, Jonas Wolff is offering the workshop “Violence Against Public Figures in Democracies” in the run-up to the annual conference of the International Studies Association (ISA) in Chicago. The workshop on March 1 is jointly organized by the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC), PRIF and the research center “Transformations of Political Violence” (TraCe). It is sponsored by the Foundation for German-American Academic Relations (SDAW).
Violence against public figures in democracies has increased in recent years. Much of this violence has so far been observed primarily in democracies in the Global South. Recently, however, there has also been an increase in violence against public figures in the United States and Europe. In response to this development, the academic debate has increasingly turned to this topic, but despite significant progress, there are still many gaps in this field of research.
Against this backdrop, the workshop “Violence Against Public Figures in Contemporary Democracies” will bring together experts from both sides of the Atlantic to discuss key challenges facing democracies in the Americas, Europe and beyond. The aim is to jointly identify what knowledge is already available on the spatial patterns, temporal dynamics, causes and consequences of targeted violence against public figures and where research is still needed. The aim of the workshop is to prepare a joint publication and a joint international research project.
Jonas Wolff is a board member and head of the Domestic Conflict Program at PRIF and Principal Investigator at the Research Center “Transformations of Political Violence (TraCe)”. Juan Albarracín Dierolf is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and was a Visiting Professor at PRIF and a Visiting Fellow at TraCe in June and July 2024. Both researchers focus on the transformation of political violence in the context and aftermath of intrastate conflicts.
Further information on the topic can be found on the website of the research project “Violence against Social Activists: Causes, Patterns, and Transformations”.