Dr. Philipp Köker

Research

🇬🇧 My research is primarily concerned with the comparative analysis of politics and institutions in Europe, with a particular focus on presidents, parties and elections in Central and Eastern Europe & the former Soviet Union.

🇩🇪 Meine Forschung beschäftigt sich primär mit der vergleichenden Analyse von Politik und Institutionen, mit einem besonderem Fokus auf Präsidenten, Parteien und Wahlen in Mittelosteuropa und der ehemaligen Sowjetunion.

Monographs, textbooks & edited volumes / Monografien, Lehrbücher & Sammelbände

Köker, Philipp. (2017). Presidential Activism and Veto Power in Central and Eastern Europe. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
[publisher link]

Sikk, Allan & Köker, Philipp. (2023). Party People: Candidates and Party Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[publisher link]
[Oxford Scholarship Online]
[electoralcandidates.org]

Köker, Philipp & Harmening Morten (2024). Studentisches Publizieren in den Sozialwissenschaften: Von der Haus- und Abschlussarbeit zur wissenschaftlichen Publikation. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
[publisher link]
[www.studentisches-publizieren.de]

Ledeneva, Alena, Bratu, Roxana & Köker, Philipp. (Hrsg.) (2017). Innovations in Corruption Studies. Cambridge: MHRA. [Simultaneously published as a Special Issue in Slavonic and East European Review, 95(1)]
[publisher link]

Journal articles, essays & book chapters / Zeitschriftenaufsätze, Essays & Buchkapitel

  • Köker, Philipp (forthcoming). Presidential Politics in Poland. in: Grzybowska-Walecka, Katarzyna, Guerra, Simona & Casal Bertoa, Fernando (eds.). Oxford Handbook of Polish Politics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Köker, Philipp. (2024). Impeachment in Central and Eastern Europe. in: Huq, Aziz, Flinders, Matthew & Monaghan, Chris (eds.). Impeachment in a Global Context: Law, Politics, and Comparative Practice. Abingdon: Routledge. 239–254. [publisher link]
  • Köker, Philipp, Weiher, Nele & Schollmeyer, Anja (2023, Online First). The Gender Gap in Civil State Decorations: A Comparative Study of the Baltic States, 1994–2020. Politics & Gender. [Open Access]
  • Köker, Philipp. (2023). The Temporary Transfer of Presidential Powers in the Czech Republic. Review of Central and East European Law 48(1), 1-31. [publisher link] [Open Access]
  • Köker, Philipp. (2022). Remembering Robert Elgie: a blogging academic. French Politics, 20 (2): 291-297. [Open Access]
  • Köker, Philipp, & Cartens, Hiske J. L. (2021). Acting Presidents and Temporary Presidential Succession in European Republics. in: Challenging traditional constitutional ideas in terms of Modern State and Politics, Đorđević, Miroslav. (ed.). Belgrad: lnstitute for Comparative Law. 245-258. [Open Access]
  • Köker, Philipp, & Harmening, Morten. (2021). Und wo sind die Wahlfrauen? Defizite deskriptiver Repräsentation bei der Wahl der deutschen Bundespräsidenten. Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen, 52(3), 575-595. [publisher link] [Open Access]
  • Hönnige, Christoph, Nyhuis, Dominic, Meyer, Philipp, Köker, Philipp & Shikano, Susumu. (2020). Dominating the Debate: Visibility Bias and Mentions of British MPs in Newspaper Reporting on Brexit. Political Research Exchange, 2(1), Online, [Open Access]
  • Köker, Philipp. (2020). Why dictators veto: Legislation, legitimation and control in Kazakhstan and Russia. Democratization, 27(2), 204-223. [publisher link] [Open Access]
  • Sikk, Allan & Köker, Philipp. (2019). Party Congruence and Novelty: A New Approach to Measuring Party and Party System Change. Party Politics, 25(6), 759–770. [publisher link][Open Access]
  • Köker, Philipp. (2019). Risk vs Reward strategies in indirect presidential elections: Political parties and the selection of presidential electors in Germany, 1949-2017. German Politics, 28(4), 602-620. [publisher link] [Open Access]
  • Köker, Philipp. (2019). The effects of majority requirements, selectorate composition and uncertainty in indirect presidential elections: The case of Estonia. East European Politics, 35(2): 238-258. [publisher link] [Open Access]
  • Ledeneva, Alena, Bratu, Roxana & Köker, Philipp. (2017) Corruption Studies for the Twenty-First Century: Paradigm Shifts and Innovative Approaches. Slavonic and East European Review, 95(1): 1-20. [publisher link] [Open Access]
  • Köker, Philipp. (2014). Semi-structured elite interviews in a nested analysis framework: Studying presidential activism in Central and Eastern Europe. SAGE Research Methods Cases, Online, DOI:10.4135/978144627305014534927. [publisher link] [Open Access]

Reviews / Rezensionen

  • Köker, Philipp. (2023). Review: Csergő, Zs., Eglitis, D. S. & Pickering, P. M. (eds), Central & East European Politics. Changes and Challenges. 5th edition. Europe-Asia Studies, 75(3), 532-534. [publisher link] [Open Access]
  • Köker, Philipp. (2023). Triple Review: Beyond Presidentialism and Parliamentarism. By Steffen Ganghof; Democracy and Executive Power. By Susan Rose-Ackerman; Dilemmas of Collective Government. By Patrick Weller, Dennis C. Grube, and R.A.W. Rhodes. Perspectives on Politics, 21(1), 380-382. [publisher link] [Open Access]
  • Köker, Philipp. (2019). Chaisty, P., N. Cheeseman and T.J. Power. Coalitional Presidentialism in Comparative Perspective. Europe-Asia Studies, 71(9): 1613-1615. [publisher link] [Open Access]
  • Köker, Philipp. (2016). Gwiazda, A. 2016. Democracy in Poland. Representation, participation, competition and accountability since 1989. East European Politics, 32(3): 401-402. [publisher link] [Open Access]
  • Köker, Philipp. (2015). Nikolenyi, Cs. 2014. Institutional Design and Party Government in Post-Communist Europe. Europe-Asia Studies, 67(10): 1727-1728. [publisher link] [Open Access]
  • Köker, Philipp. (2015). Hloušek, V. (ed.). 2014. Presidents above Parties? Presidents in Central and Eastern Europe, Their Formal Competencies and Informal Power. CEU Political Science Journal, 10(1-2): 147-150. [Open Access]

Blog posts

Research project / Forschungsprojekt

Courts under pressure: How social change discourse about the rule of law in modern democracies

Social media is fundamentally changing the nature of political discourse in modern democracies by allowing political actors to circumvent media gatekeepers. Especially right-wing populists have benefited from the changing media landscape. Given their disdain for an independent judiciary, social media has allowed populists to attack high courts in a way that was inconceivable under the conventional model of journalistic gatekeeping. On a theoretical level, our project highlights the potentially detrimental effects of elite discourses on social media, while focusing on high courts as a key pillar of liberal democracy. Showing how social media are abused to undermine the rule of law is particularly worrisome for new democracies where independent judiciaries are viewed as a last line of defence against authoritarian tendencies. The project compares elite discourses on high courts in Germany, the UK, Poland and Estonia over a ten-year period by analyzing print media content and social media use by political actors. The project makes use of large-scale web data collection and automated text analysis to systematically trace discourses on the rule of law. Based on the results, the project will seek to raise awareness among journalists about the challenges associated with an overreliance on social media in their reporting.

Principal Investigators
Prof. Dr. Christoph Hönnige, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Institut für Politikwissenschaft
Dr. Philipp Köker, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Institut für Politikwissenschaft
Prof. Dr. Dominic Nyhuis, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

Duration: 2021-2024

Total sum awarded: €507,800

Sponsor: VW Stiftung / MWK Niedersachsen (Die Digitale Gesellschaft)