Hertie School

What Works Against Populist Rhetoric? The Effects of Counter-Arguments on Democratic Attitudes

Abstract Politicians use populist rhetoric – arguments that portray politics as an enduring conflict between “the good people” and “the evil elites” – to generate support for attacks on constitutional safeguards, the media, and minorities. Yet, little is known about how to counte...

Drug shortages in Italy: strategic insights and empirical evidence from the Italian pharmaceutical market

Abstract Drug shortages disrupt healthcare delivery and pose a critical challenge to the resilience of pharmaceutical supply chains. This study investigates the drivers of drug shortages in Italy – Europe’s leading pharmaceutical producer – to identify the factors associated with...

Framing democracy and its opposite: States and banned political parties before the ECtHR

Abstract The European Convention on Human Rights protects both individual rights and the democratic order in state parties. When these two come into conflict, the European Court of Human Rights (the Court) must choose between them. This tension produces an ambivalence in the Cour...

Beyond benchmarking: an expert-guided consensus approach to spatially aware clustering

Spatial omics technologies have revolutionized the study of tissue architecture and cellular heterogeneity by integrating molecular profiles with spatial localization. In spatially resolved transcriptomics, delineating higher-order anatomical structures is critical for understand...