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Wir bieten unterschiedliche Datensätze, die durch Forschungsprojekte von Prof. em. Detlef Jahn entstanden sind. Diese können kostenlos heruntergeladen werden (siehe Data Download):
- Parties, institutions and preferences (PIP)
- Agenda-setting power model (ASPM)
- Index of Corporatism
- Comparative Welfare Entitlements Dataset 2 (CWED 2)
- Environmental indicators (heating degree months, HDM)
Professor im Ruhestand Dr. Detlef Jahn
Prof. Jahn ist seit dem 1. April 2022 im Ruhestand.
Ongoing Research, Data & Publications
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In the spring of 1999 I was appointed as one of the at that time three professors at the newly established Department for Political Science at the University of Greifswald. After finishing a vocational training I started studying Sociology and Political Science in 1978 at the University of Duisburg. I received my M.A. degree (Diploma) in Sociology at Bielefeld University in 1985 after studying for one year as a postgraduate at the University of Edinburgh. After a three-year scholarship from the DAAD at the European University Institute (EUI) and a one-year scholarship from the Swedish Institute for conducting field research in Sweden, I finished my PhD studies at the EUI in 1991 under the supervision of Gøsta Esping-Andersen and Claus Offe. After working as a research assistant in Paderborn and later with a DFG-Habilitationstipendium at Göteborg University I received my lenia legendi in Political Sociology under the supervision of Klaus Eder in 1998.
In 1996, I was appointed as Research Professor of Political Science in the Department of Politics and Economics at Nottingham Trend University. Since 1999 I have been Professor (C4) of Comparative Politics at the University of Greifswald. During my employment, I have been Guest Professor at the Universities of California (Los Angeles and Irvine), New York University (NYU), the National University of Australia in Canberra, the University of Bergen (Norway), Åbo Akademi (Finnland), Lincoln University (New Zealand), and the universities of Södertörn and Göteborg (Sweden).
I received funds for projects from the Swedish Research Council, Swedish Council for Planning and Coordination of Research, the Ministry of Research and Technology of the Federal Republic of Germany, several projects from the DFG and Fritz Thyssen Foundation in the areas of environmental politics and policy, international diffusion, welfare state research, and emerging patterns of democracies in Central and Eastern Europe. I am a board member and regional coordinator of the Sustainability Government Index (SGI) of the Bertelsmann Foundation and board member of the Institute for Climate Protection, Energy and Mobility (IKEM). Since October 2012 I have been a permanent Fellow of the Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG) “The Transformative Power of Europe” at the Free University Berlin. From 2006 to 2014 I was a member of the Advisory Board of the Center of Excellence (Democracy: A Citizen Perspective) at Åbo Akademi, Finland.
I have refereed articles in more than 20 journals among them the American Journal of Political Science, American Political Science Review, The Journal of Politics, American Sociological Review, International Organization, World Politics, European Journal of Political Research, Comparative Political Studies, Socio-Economic Review, Party Politics and the British Journal of Political Science. I have also been invited to review projects for the DFG, Australian Research Council, the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, Swedish Research Council and the Icelandic Research Fund.
I received funded sabbaticals from the DFG (October 2004–April 2005), the Hanse Wissenschaftskolleg (April 2007–March 2008), Södertörn University (September 2011–March 2011), the National Australian University (January–May 1998) and the KFG (October 2011–September 2012; October 2015–September 2016).
My research focus is on comparative politics, in particular macro-comparative studies. Aside from that I specialized on the Nordic countries – especially Sweden. I published general articles on the political system of these countries or on special aspects. I am also engaged in studies analyzing the development of the Baltic Sea Region. More in general I published two monographs on the introduction to comparative politics and one to political science with Thomas Bernauer, Stefanie Walter and Patrick Kuhn. I also engaged in books and articles which advanced the methodology – qualitative and quantitative – of comparative politics.
My major contribution in comparative environmental research has been published by Cambridge University Press (2016) with endorsements by Arend Lijphart, George Tsebelis, Ron Mitchell and Lyle Scruggs. As the endorsements show, this book is not only on environmental performance but also demonstrates new ways of modelling the political process in macro-comparative politics. Lijphart states:
"This excellent study shows how various styles of politics exist simultaneously in modern societies. … A major contribution of this study is the agenda setting power model which illustrates how these two strategies work in democracies. The conclusion builds on a rigorous data analysis which underlines the argument compellingly. This approach provides a very attractive model for other studies in the field of macro-comparative politics."
Ron Mitchell recommends this book as the “go-to book” in environmental politics. Furthermore he concludes:
"This book provides a sophisticated and carefully articulated argument that reflects Jahn’s unique depth and breadth of knowledge regarding political and policy processes, on the one hand, and environmental degradation, on the other. The book brings together an impressively broad range of theoretical insights, methodological tools, and empirical evidence in an analysis that provides a compelling examination of why countries sometimes succeed but too often fail in their efforts to protect the natural environment. This book has set a new standard of excellence for those seeking to understand comparative environmental politics."
I also devoted my research to new conceptualizations of established concepts in order to make them fit for time-series—cross section analysis. Particularly worth mentioning here is a time-variant index for corporatism for 42 countries from 1960-2010 or veto players. The latter has been appraised by George Tsebelis in his introduction to the research on veto player theory:
"There are two important contributions that Jahn introduces in his analysis, both of them depend on the time dimension. Preferences of actors change over time. This change was not included in my original work, so Jahn clearly precedes one step further. … The other significant change that Jahn introduces is change of institutions."
I also offer indices for party positions, veto players and the EU which are time variant and country specific. This data and additional information are publicly available for interested scholars (http://comparativepolitics.uni-greifswald.de). Since 2013, when the dataset was opened to the public, the data has been downloaded more than 1,500 times.
Interdisciplinary work and projects concern the development of an index of heating and cooling degrees for 21 OECD countries. This research is highly relevant to estimate the causes of increasing energy use. The work for this has been published among others in the scientific peer-reviewed journal of the American Metrological Society. A project on Health Policy and Cancer Prevention has been sponsored by Sanofi Pasteur MSD from October 2007 to February 2009.
I also worked in the field of social policy where we supply scholars with highly sophisticated data on welfare state benefits. Together with Lyle Scruggs (University of Connecticut) and Kati Kuitto (Finnish Centre for Pensions) I present data on the generosity of social insurance benefits in 33 countries around the world (www.cwed2.org). This dataset is widely used and since its launch in 2013, has been applied in more than 200 peer-reviewed articles. The most recent single-authored publication in this context has just been published by the European Journal of Social Policy.
Over the years, I have also been interested in diffusion analysis. In this context I pioneered the spatial analysis of diffusion in political science (first publication in 2003). The breakthrough was a single-authored article in International Organization in 2006. Since then I have continuously worked in this area and elaborated the technique of modelling the interdependence of states in times of globalization. By doing this I have strengthened the field of comparative politics and responded to the claim of the “end of methodological nationalism” and that the ontology of macro-quantitative research is unable to grasp international interdependence. I also combined party research with diffusion research.
Recently I investigate the political factors explaining differences in climate policy and the strategies in corona crisis. One aspect of this research is on the impact of party effects and populism on these policies.
The substantive results have been published at Cambridge University Press and in peer-reviewed journals such as International Organization, European Journal of Political Research, Socio-Economic Review, West European Politics, European Journal of Public Policy, European Journal of Social Policy, Policy Sciences, Scandinavian Political Studies, Weather, Climate and Society, Party Politics and Environmental Politics.
In 2009, I took parental leave for one term and since then have played an active role in raising my two children born 2009 and 2011.