RECONNECT is a four-year multidisciplinary research project on ‘Reconciling Europe with its Citizens through Democracy and the Rule of Law’. The project is funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 framework programme for research and innovation. With an explicit focus on strengthening the EU’s legitimacy through democracy and the rule of law, RECONNECT aims to understand and provide solutions to the recent challenges faced by the European Union. On this basis, the project consortium seeks to build a new narrative for Europe, enabling the EU to become more attuned to the expectations of its citizens.

As one of the 18 academic partner institutions from 14 countries, the project team at the University of Münster's Department of Political Science collects and analyzes data on European citizens' attitudes toward institutional reform (Work Package 9). The team consists of the two principal investigators, Prof. Bernd Schlipphak and Prof. Oliver Treib, a postdoc researcher (to be employed from 2019 to 2021) and several student research assistants. In addition to their core work on Work Package 9, the Münster team is involved in multiple other Work Packages, supplying information on the state of citizens' attitudes toward the European Union, democracy, the rule of law and toward more specific EU policies. In doing so, the two principal investigators benefit from their long-term experience in working on citizens' attitudes toward the European Union, European politics and toward global governance.

If you are interested in the work of the overarching RECCONECT consortium, please have a look at the RECONNECT website. For more information on the work of the Münster team, please consult their website, check out the personal websites of  Bernd Schlipphak and Oliver Treib, or send an email to  reconnect-europe@uni-muenster.de.

Responsible Researchers at WWU Münster

Bernd Schlipphak is Associate Professor of Empirical Methods in the Social Sciences at the Department of Political Science, University of Münster. After his PhD at University of Freiburg (2009), Bernd has worked as a Postdoc in the field of mass attitudes toward international politics and the European Union at Universities of Salzburg (2009-2012) and Goettingen (2012-2013) before joining University of Münster. He first held a position as Assistant Professor (Juniorprofessor) before becoming Associate Professor in 2016.  Currently, Bernd is elected member of the Steering Committee of the ECPR's Standing Group on Political Methodology and a member of Team Populism. His main research interests include the measurement and analysis of popular legitimacy of Global Governance institutions and policies. Additionally, he is interested in how popular legitimacy toward the international level feeds back to and is fed by domestic politics – the associated keywords being populism, politicization, and authority.

Oliver Treib is Professor of Comparative Policy Analysis and and Research Methods at the University of Münster. He received his Master’s degree and PhD in political science from the University of Cologne. His professional career began at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne, where he worked as a doctoral and post-doctoral researcher. Prior to joining the University of Münster, he worked at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna, first as an Assistant Professor, then as Head of the Department of Political Science, and at the University of Salzburg, where he spent a year as tenure-track Assistant Professor. Since 2015, he has been one of the of the Convenors of the German Political Science Association’s “Arbeitskreis Integrationsforschung”. His current research revolves around the politicization of European integration and the concomitant transformation of political conflict structures in the European multi-level system. He is particularly interested in the sources of support for Eurosceptic and right-wing populist parties and in the reactions of mainstream parties to these anti-establishment challengers.